And They Were Seatmates
by Marquise de Nile
Summary: Sakura's school life dramatically changes when she becomes the seatmate of Uchiha Madara. MadaSaku Same Age AU in Ninja Academy.
1. Chapter 1

AN: This was initially written for MadaSaku Weekend 2019, but it's already 2020 and the story got much longer than expected so I decided to post the first part now.

Prompt: Same Age AU

Summary: Sakura's school life dramatically changes when she becomes the seatmate of Uchiha Madara.

**.**

**And They Were Seatmates**

**-1-**

All Sakura wanted was to impress Sasuke-kun and show Ino-pig who was the better kunoichi. She trained as hard as she could, while carefully maintaining her appearance, she read all her textbooks from cover to cover, listened to Iruka-sensei's every lecture and made detailed, colour-coded notes. With all her diligent work, it came as no surprise that the mid-term Academy exam was a piece of cake to her. She didn't even need to pull those all-nighters, Sakura thought smugly, tossing her hair back.

"Excellent work, Sakura," Iruka-sensei gave her the results—a perfect 100!—with congratulations, but his smile didn't reach his eyes. He looked tired though, with heavy bags under his eyes from grading the tests until late, so that must have been why.

"Thank you, sensei," she replied demurely, shooting a triumphant look Ino's way. She just knew her rival didn't get a perfect score.

"Could you stay for a bit after class? I have some news for you," Iruka-sensei said.

Sakura cocked her eyebrow, intrigued. "Sure, sensei!" she replied and he moved on to the next person.

She wondered what Iruka-sensei had to say to her in private. It had to be something to do with her score. Was she getting a reward? Maybe a stipend for scholarly achievements from the Hokage? She heard there were such things in civilian schools, so why not the Ninja Academy?

Her eyes lit up. Maybe she would be gifted with a special jutsu only she could learn? Then Ino-pig could no longer lord over her that she had a secret clan technique and Sakura had nothing. Ha!

Now Sakura really hoped it was a jutsu.

At recess, she approached Sasuke, her grade report clutched in hand. "Hi, Sasuke-kun!" she chirped. "How did you do on the exam? You must have done great too!"

"Forehead girl!" Ino interrupted before Sasuke could answer. "Did you come to him to rub in your _perfect score_?" she said with a mocking tone and an eyeroll. Sakura saw red. How dare that pig make light of her achievement?!

"Shut up! You're just jealous I'm better than you!" she snapped.

"Better at swotting?" Ino asked sweetly with an arched blond eyebrow.

Sakura puffed up in anger. "Well, I'm the one getting a special reward from Iruka-sensei after class, not you!"

"Reward, as if! All he said was that he had news for you. That doesn't mean the same as a reward!" Ino was quick to point out. It also proved that she was listening in to that conversation. Nosy pig!

"Reward? Sakura-chan is getting a reward?" Naruto, the resident idiot and class clown, came up to them.

"She's not getting any reward!" Ino corrected him with a bellow.

"Sure I am!" Sakura countered.

The girls glared at each other so hard the sparks flew. Meanwhile, Sasuke slinked away, discreetly stuffing his report in his bag. If anyone around was fast and eagle-eyed enough, they could have noticed a big 99 on the paper before he'd hid it.

After the recess, Sakura took back her seat in class with a miffed air around her. Not only Ino-pig had belittled her achievement and sown doubts about sensei's reward, she'd prevented Sakura from talking to Sasuke-kun! She bemoaned that lost chance internally.

When the last bell rang and everyone else left for the day, Sakura hopefully approached Iruka-sensei's desk. She clasped her hands behind her back to contain her nervousness. "Sensei, you wanted to tell me something?" she inquired.

"Yes, Sakura," Iruka sighed and brushed a hand over his hair. "This won't be easy. Tell me, do you feel bored in class?"

She stared at him in puzzlement. "No, your lessons are really interesting!" she replied enthusiastically, deciding that perhaps her favourite teacher needed to be cheered up. That she already knew all the material perfectly from studying ahead shouldn't matter.

Iruka smiled. "Thank you, but that's not what I was asking about. Tell me, when was the last time you learned anything new in class?"

Sakura thought hard. "Last year?" she guessed. That had been before she'd begun studying ahead.

Another deep sigh came out of Iruka. "That's what I thought."

Sakura shifted nervously, wringing her hands. "Sensei, did I do something wrong?"

"No," Iruka said, shaking his head. "The news I have for you is that Hokage-sama reviewed your scores and he made an important decision."

Sakura's heart pounded. Hokage-sama himself saw her merits?

"Starting tomorrow, you're going to attend classes with the graduating year."

She stared wide-eyed at her teacher after that announcement, feeling faint. "You mean… I'm moved up a grade?" she asked, her mind working out the implications.

"Yes, it's a great honour. Hokage-sama saw your potential as a student. He thought you're ready for more challenging work."

"Is Sasuke-kun getting moved up too?" she asked hurriedly.

Iruka frowned. "Sasuke? No."

"But he's top of the class! If I'm getting into the higher grade, then he should too! He's more talented than I am!" Sakura argued in panic. She didn't want to be separated from her crush!

"Sakura," Iruka said authoritatively, "it's true he's top of the class, but he's not as far ahead with academic material as you are. I'm sure I won't be able to teach you anything new for the rest of this year." His eyes softened. "I know it would be hard leaving behind all your friends, but you're a smart girl. You will adapt and become a great kunoichi, won't you?"

"O-Of course," she mumbled, nodding, but she didn't feel like any of that was true.

"Great! Here's your new schedule. Goro-sensei will await you tomorrow in his classroom."

Sakura automatically accepted the piece of paper and scampered out of the class. She returned home like in a trance, feeling shell-shocked as she grappled with this unexpected turn in her life.

After entering her house, she headed straight to her bedroom, threw herself on the bed and finally let the dam burst. Sakura curled up and sobbed into her pillow.

All she wanted was to beat Ino-pig and impress Sasuke-kun! Now she'd never see them again. Just the thought that she wouldn't share the class with everyone she knew, even that idiot Naruto, made her burst into fresh tears. She was so scared! What if the older kids wouldn't like her? The possibility was very high. Sakura had never had a good track record making friends. She'd once had Ino, but she'd broken it off.

"Sakura! Dinner!" she heard her mother's call.

Sakura lifted herself up and went to the bathroom to freshen up. She splashed cold water on her puffy eyes and red cheeks to hide that she'd been crying. If her parents got worried, they'd try to make her stop going to the Academy and that wasn't something she'd ever give up. She wouldn't let all her hard work go to waste! Pasting on a cheerful smile, she skipped downstairs.

Getting through the dinner wasn't so bad, Sakura just kept her head down and focused on eating. Then she helped with dishes and excused herself to her room to resume freaking out. After a few rounds of giving herself pep talks then plunging into despair, she fell into uneasy sleep.

Next day, Sakura headed to the Academy full of apprehension. The closer she got, the more her stomach clenched from the nerves. She was dragging her feet but when she noticed Ino coming over, she picked up her pace to avoid talking to her rival. Out of habit Sakura almost ran to her old classroom but she remembered in time to turn right and enter the one on the other end of the hallway.

The teacher made her stand in the front of the class while he addressed the students. "This is Haruno Sakura, she was moved up a year and will be joining us from now on."

Twenty pairs of curious eyes bore into her.

Sakura forced a smile and bowed politely. "H-Hello. I'm Sakura, please take care of me," she gave a customary greeting, hating herself for how her voice stumbled on the first word.

"Sit down and let's get started," the teacher instructed.

Sakura looked around in search for a free spot or even better—a friendly face, but to her dismay there were none. One girl even moved to take up more space on her bench on purpose. Sakura gritted her teeth, then noticed space in the last row. A dark-haired boy was sitting there all by himself. Relieved, she scurried up the stairs and took a seat next to him.

"Hi," she whispered.

The boy turned away from the window and she was taken aback by just how similar he looked to Sasuke-kun. His hair was different, more spiky in the front and he had droopy lower eyelids but his face and high collar of his indigo shirt were all Uchiha style. They had to be related.

Sakura wanted to ask for his name, but Goro-sensei ordered everyone to stop talking. They were starting the day with math. After a short explanation, the teacher made them work on problems he wrote on the blackboard. Sakura was thrilled with the lesson as she finally encountered something new to learn.

She carefully solved the math problems and checked her work to make sure it was absolutely correct. Then she allowed herself to look around the class curiously. Everyone else was still working.

She sneaked a glance at her seatmate. She couldn't help herself, he looked so much like Sasuke-kun! But there was a different air around him that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She'd need to observe him and learn more. Good reconnaissance was a fundamental skill for a ninja.

The boy next to her narrowed his eyes and furiously scribbled. He seemed to have some trouble with the math. Sakura unobtrusively scooted closer and looked over his arm. With a quick glance, she spotted where he made a mistake in his calculations.

"Here," she whispered and tapped her finger on his paper to indicate the incorrect equation. "You need to fix this first," she told him.

The boy gave her a surprised look, then checked what she showed him. With his mistake pointed out to him, he was able to swiftly correct it.

"… Thanks," he muttered to her.

Sakura smiled, pleased that she helped him. "You're welcome," she whispered. "I'm Sakura. What's your name?"

"I'm-" His hand shot out in front of her face and caught two pieces of chalk, one meant for himself and the other headed straight at her forehead. "… Madara." The boy looked to the front of the class. "Hey, teach, your hand slipped. You need that back?" he asked nonchalantly.

The teacher's gaze narrowed. "Madara! If you have time to talk, why won't you come here and solve the first problem?"

The boy stood up and ambled down the stairs. At least the view from the back confirmed that he was indeed an Uchiha as he sported their crest on his shirt. Sakura frowned, noticing how other students subtly shifted away in their seats when he passed. She didn't understand why—he didn't smell bad like Naruto or Kiba often did.

Madara grabbed the chalk and wrote down the solved equation on the blackboard without stopping for calculations. It dawned on Sakura that he wrote the long, complicated sequence entirely from memory.

"Is that all, sensei?" he drawled after he finished.

The man visibly bristled. "Go back to your seat," he said with a grumble.

Sakura watched the whole exchange with fascination. Madara already proved himself completely different from Sasuke-kun. Her crush would've never acted so disrespectful to a teacher. He was also rather well-liked among their class despite his standoffish attitude. Madara on the other hand… She didn't know what to think of him yet. She didn't approve his attitude towards sensei but he also thanked her for her advice and saved her from the chalk attack.

The lessons continued uneventfully and Sakura lost herself in the new coursework. She almost forgot she changed classes if not for the lack of Sasuke-kun to ogle, Ino-pig to make faces at or Naruto to get annoyed with. She might have been grateful for the lack of distractions, but all it really meant that majority of fun from going to school was gone.

She didn't dare attempt to speak to her seatmate during morning classes again and when the bell rang, he was instantly gone through the window. Sakura blinked in surprise, but she had no desire to follow him. Instead, she grabbed her lunch and decided to try mingling with the rest of her classmates. After a moment of indecision she approached a group of girls settled in a good, shaded spot on the Academy grounds.

"Yo. New girl," their leader acknowledged her.

"Hi," Sakura began, shuffling on her feet. "Can I eat lunch with you all?"

"Ohh, can she?" one of the girls mocked.

Sakura glared, but the leader patted the ground. "Sit down. I'm Emi."

"Thanks." With no small amount of relief, she plopped down on the free spot.

"So, what did you do to get pushed up like that?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did you piss someone off? We have peace time, no one's allowed to graduate early."

"Which is a bummer. We could get rid of some real jerks that way," another girl commented.

"Like Madara!" the third put in and all laughed.

Sakura tilted her head. "He doesn't seem so bad…" she said cautiously.

They looked at her as if she had three heads.

"Madara, not bad? He's the worst!"

"It's like he's constantly plotting to murder all of us!" a girl shuddered and the others nodded.

"New kid, you should stay the hell away from Madara if you value your life," Emi told Sakura seriously.

Sakura felt herself paling. "Why?"

"You didn't hear it from us, but he almost beat a kid to death on his first day in the Academy. The kid was lucky to survive but he had to give up on becoming a ninja," Emi informed her.

"It's because of that crazy clan training. That must really screw up your mind. Make you into a ruthless killer," someone speculated.

"I heard Madara once beat a teacher!" Another girl added.

"Idiot, that's not true!"

The group devolved into bickering while Sakura tried to wrap her mind around what she'd just learned about her seatmate. Was he that dangerous all this time and she didn't notice anything amiss? No wonder no one wanted to sit next to him!

Now she wanted to find a different spot in the classroom, but… what if Madara got offended? Wouldn't angering him be worse?

When the recess ended, Sakura headed back to the classroom like to the chopping block. Her seatmate wasn't there yet, so she cast a hopeful look around and realized with dismay that everywhere else was really taken. With a sigh, she took her seat.

Madara returned through the window. Sakura stiffened, but he just sat down, ignoring her. She looked at him anxiously, trying to figure out if he'd really done those things the girls had told her about.

"What," he said, noticing her stare. He didn't seem angry, but the way his dark eyes seized her up was… slightly intimidating.

Sakura gulped. "Nothing!"

"Hm."

The teacher wasn't back yet so she decided to risk talking. "It's just, Madara-kun, I was wondering…"

His eyebrow shot up incredulously at that.

"… where you went for lunch," she finished weakly before she completely lost her nerve. Even if this wasn't on the top of the list of what she really wanted to know about.

"First of all, don't call me that," he replied with a disgruntled look.

"What? Madara-kun?" she asked in confusion. Why wouldn't he want her to use a honorific? She didn't bother with it for most boys anyway, but it was weird that he didn't like it.

Madara rolled his eyes. "Yes, that. Just Madara is fine. And second, you can come and see where I went next time. If you can follow me, of course," he said with an infuriating smirk. Like he thought she couldn't do even that!

"Alright," she agreed stiffly, then shrugged. "If you can do it, it can't be too hard. It's not like it's advanced algebra," she remarked with eyes narrowed at him.

Madara did a doubletake, reddening slightly, before regaining his composure. He gave her an approving look. "Heh, so you do have some bite. Sakura, right?"

She nodded with a small smile.

Only later did she realize that she's forgotten her apprehension of him pretty quickly once they'd gotten talking. Sakura pondered her seatmate as he scribbled something with a bored expression while the teacher grilled some hapless student about political hierarchy in the Land of Fire. Madara wasn't so bad, she decided.

And strategically speaking, he might be what she needed to get closer to Sasuke-kun. To her dismay, Ino-pig had now the distinct advantage over her by sharing a classroom with the boy of her dreams. Sakura would have to step up her game to win him over.

After the whole day of classes, Sakura trudged out of the Academy, but she was accosted right outside the entrance.

"Sakura-chan, where were you?" Naruto whined.

"I was in class, where else?" she replied with an eyeroll.

"No, you weren't! I thought you were sick."

"Naruto, the Hokage put me in the upper year. I was in their classroom," she explained with a sigh.

"The old man did that? Why didn't he put me there too? I'm an awesome student!" Naruto got offended at the perceived injustice. Sakura just sweat-dropped. He was such an idiot. Getting him in her new class would have been a nightmare. On the other hand, her wicked side chimed in, it would have been interesting to see what Madara would make of Naruto.

_to be continued..._

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AN: It was hard to find the right place to cut it. Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think about the story.

The story is written in around 80% so I'm planning regular updates. Until next time! :)


	2. Chapter 2

**And They Were Seatmates**

**-2-**

Sakura's next day in her new class went about in a similar fashion. No matter the grade you were in, the lessons followed the same structure. Also, now that Sakura got over the dramatic change of class, she finally told her parents about it. They looked worried at first, but her calm demeanor and assurances that she was doing fine quelled the worst of their doubts. She made sure they wouldn't pull her out of the Academy.

During lunchtime Madara once again left by window and Sakura leaned out to see where he went, remembering his challenge. Her jaw dropped when she saw him walking up the wall of the building straight to the roof. _How is he doing that?_ She wondered in astonishment, before her logical side switched on. She concluded that he used chakra in his feet and from there she extrapolated that it had to be similar in principle to the leaf exercise, except instead of gluing something to your body, you were gluing yourself to a wall. It must have been a more advanced technique because it wasn't mentioned anywhere in the Academy textbooks.

Sakura looked up at the distance to the roof, then down to the ground and gulped. Would she dare try following him? She never had any trouble with sticking leaves to her forehead which was encouraging, but if she made a mistake here she could break her neck from the fall.

_Here goes!_ She thought and climbed out of the window, placing first her hands on the wall. When she got the chakra right to make them stick, she put her feet on the wall as well. Then she crawled up like a spider.

"This was easier than I thought. Huh," Sakura commented when she flipped over the railing onto the roof. Madara gaped at her.

"How- how did you get here?!" he exclaimed.

Sakura dusted off her hands. "I climbed the wall like you showed me. Easy peasy."

"Academy students aren't supposed to know how to do this," Madara said incredulously.

She gave him a deadpan look. "_You_ are an Academy student."

"I'm different." He waved his hand dismissively.

Sakura crossed her arms, getting fed up with his arrogance.

"Well, it wasn't that hard to figure out how you did this and then I just did the same thing," she said waspishly. "Maybe you're not so special."

Madara hummed in thought. "Or maybe _you_ _are_ special," he replied.

Then he looked down to open his lunchbox, which is why, thankfully, he didn't see her blush. Sakura wasn't used to praise like that. Not from boys. Oh, sometimes Naruto tried to flatter her but his over the top compliments only incensed her. He just tried to suck up to her. Other than that, Iruka-sensei complimented her good work, but he was their teacher and he'd say that to anyone who put in the effort. And Sasuke-kun… he didn't comment on anyone's abilities so there was no way to know what he thought of hers.

Sakura sat down and opened her own lunch. She got hungry after that wall climbing exercise. She made a face at the tuna and pushed it aside, going for the veggies and rice alone. Her mother was trying to fatten her up again, as if she didn't know a kunoichi had to be slim and beautiful.

A pair of chopsticks snatched the fish from her bento in a blink of an eye.

"Hey!" Sakura exclaimed angrily as Madara gobbled down her tuna in front of her eyes.

"What? It's not like you were going to eat it," he said, licking his lips.

Touché. But Sakura wasn't going to back down. She puffed up in anger. "How do you know that?! Maybe I was leaving it for the last!" she argued.

Madara perused her critically. "I highly doubt it. You're the kind of girl that's always on a diet," he said with a shrug.

Bullseye again. Despite herself, Sakura was intrigued how he came to this conclusion. They'd just met yesterday, so he knew nothing about her. "And what makes you say that?" she asked.

"Your hair is nice and shiny, so you take good care of it, you smell like skin care products, you've done your nails and I didn't see any calluses on your hands. You dress fashionably and in red, so you want to be noticed. It's quite obvious you put effort into your appearance. Oh, and you grimaced when you pushed the fish aside. So yeah, I'm certain you're dieting," Madara delivered his analysis of her off-handedly.

Sakura was speechless. He noticed all these little details about her, even her hands, and put them together—and he was correct! Suddenly, she felt so small and inadequate. She couldn't do the same to him, even though she was so curious. Balling her fists, she decided to pay more attention from now on.

"You still should have asked me before you took my food," she muttered sullenly, looking at her lap.

"You like peaches?" he asked out of the blue.

Sakura turned her face up. "Yes, but why…" she trailed off. He was holding out his lunchbox to her and, lo and behold, there were four peach halves set aside for dessert.

"Help yourself. That's in exchange for your fish," Madara offered.

"Thanks…" Sakura moved two pieces into her own lunchbox.

She hesitantly brought one to her lips and took a bite. The light, refreshing sweetness filled her mouth with flavour and she brightened up. It was delicious! In no time, she scarfed down the fruit. If that was the compensation for Madara stealing her fish, then she had no more complaints!

Madara was smirking at her as he ate his own peach and colour rose to her cheeks.

"What?" she asked defensively.

"Nothing." He chewed and swallowed, then spoke again. "Anyway, why did you follow me up here?"

"Uh…" Sakura floundered. Why, indeed? "You didn't think I could do it…"

"So, just to prove me wrong?"

"I guess so…" She hang her head. Spoken out loud, that reason seemed embarrassingly shallow.

"Well, you've got more guts than anyone in this school." Madara put his empty lunchbox aside and leaned back on his elbows, staring up into the sky.

Sakura stayed uncomfortably silent. If she was so brave, why was she unable to ask him anything? She gathered up her courage. All things considered, Madara had been nice to her so far.

"Is it true…" she started slowly, "… that you broke a boy's arm and he had to quit the Academy?"

Madara opened his mouth, then frowned. "Sort of…" he admitted.

Sakura froze, her heart thudding hard in her ribcage. She was hoping he'd deny the rumour altogether, not confirm it so calmly. "Really? Why did you do it?" she asked, half-scared to know the answer.

"It was just a spar, no big deal. I pushed his arm a little too hard. Tch. Twiggy bastard," he replied with a scowl.

Sakura gaped at his uncaring attitude. "How can you say that?! He quit because of that!"

Madara leveled her with a cold look. "If a broken arm was all it took, then he wasn't cut out to be a shinobi anyway."

She could see his point, but… this was too heartless. "Then, is it true that you beat a teacher?"

"Is that what they're saying now?" Madara looked amused. "No, I didn't… But I could," he added with arrogance.

From what she could see, he was completely unrepentant of his actions and he made nothing of his scary reputation. Normally, she'd stay away from someone like him, but his self-assured presence was calming and pulled her in. He put her at ease so effortlessly, despite being insufferable at times. Sakura was reminded of her friendship with Ino, before Sasuke. Ino had that strong confidence that she liked and wanted to emulate. Madara's was less loud, but just as unshakable.

The bell rang, ending the recess and they returned to class. Only when she went back home, Sakura realized she forgot to ask Madara anything about Sasuke.

Over the next few days, she made sure to observe her seatmate closely. Madara was a genius. He scored the best in all practical lessons and he was no slouch in their coursework. And he did all that with an air of boredom, or at the very least mild interest. Sakura got the impression that he could have graduated ages ago, but she didn't understand why he didn't.

When she got the chance to ask him, he only shrugged with a scowl. "It's the law. We have peace time, so they won't graduate anyone early. I'm stuck here."

The other thing she noticed about him were his lunches. Many of them were bought in store and the few homemade ones had to be of his own making. Sakura wondered if he had no one to prepare his bento, but she didn't dare ask. It seemed too personal.

Instead, she plucked up the courage to ask about her crush.

"Can you tell me about Sasuke-kun?"

Madara sat up straighter in his lounging position. "My cousin? What about him?"

"What does he like?" Sakura kept her voice light, but her hands clutched tightly at her dress as she tried to contain her excitement. She was so close to striking gold! Madara could be the insider source that she needed to get one leg over Ino in their love competition.

"Hell if I know. We're not that close." Madara's reply effectively doused her in icy water. "Why do you want to know that about him?" he asked shrewdly.

"Just curious…" she mumbled and squirmed under his keen gaze as she suddenly found the roof tiles fascinating. Even if in her old class everyone knew about her crush (all the girls liked Sasuke-kun anyway), talking openly about it with Madara would be unspeakably mortifying.

"You could just ask him if it's so important to you," Madara suggested.

Sakura made a non-committal sound of agreement, still keeping her head down.

"Maybe I could find something out for you, but what's in it for me?" he asked slyly.

She looked up so fast her neck cricked. "Really?!"

"No." He chuckled at her crestfallen expression.

"Madara!" she exclaimed in reproach.

"Come on, you fell for it way too easy," he said with a grin.

Sakura crossed her arms and looked away in a pout.

Madara put his arms over his head and laid back down. "In your place, I wouldn't worry about Sasuke too much. All that kid has on his mind is training. He probably doesn't even know what girls are."

If that was supposed to cheer her up, he failed miserably, because Sakura only got incensed on her crush's behalf. "Don't say that about Sasuke-kun! He's really smart!" she exclaimed, jumping to his defense.

"Uh-uh." Madara remained unconvinced.

"He is! And where do you get off talking like you're so high and mighty? You're a kid too!" she pointed out.

Madara yawned and turned on his side.

"Hey! Stop ignoring me!" she snapped, hands on hips as she stood over him.

Madara opened one lazy eye. "Sorry? You said something?"

"You-! You're-!" Sakura felt like tearing out her hair. "You're impossible!"

And she left in a sulk to spend the rest of the break looking for Sasuke. She didn't have any luck finding him, but she ran into Ino and they got into another spat. Dejected, Sakura returned to the classroom.

However, despite Madara's general insufferableness, she didn't mind being his seatmate. At least he didn't do disgusting things like chewing gum and sticking it under the desktop. In all seriousness, Madara was very focused, if bored at times. He didn't distract her during class and he kept his things in order, so there were no issues between them.

Only looking at him sometimes filled her with a nostalgic longing for the good old times when she could stare all day long at Sasuke-kun. But Madara was no Sasuke. Besides family resemblance and sheer aptitude for all ninja skills, his character was quite different. It was definitely easier to talk to him and he didn't avoid her attention. She was free to visit him on the roof which she did more often than not. It was just a good place to relax and it had a nice view of the village.

"What are you doing?" Madara asked when she opened her books and notes on the roof.

"Um, revising for the test?" Sakura replied, unsure why he was even asking. It was pretty normal to prepare last minute.

"What for? You already know all of that," he said, regarding her learning materials with disgust.

"I'd rather prepare some more to make sure I'm 100 percent ready," she explained. It was still fairly new stuff to her as well and she didn't have the advantage of absorbing it months ago. "You should do that too."

"Why bother? I remember everything we learned," Madara boasted. "It's all in here." He tapped his temple.

Sakura gave him a dry look. Yeah, he had a great memory, but that didn't mean he wouldn't fudge up some details.

"Well, if you don't need to study, then you can help me," she said and extended her notes to him.

Reluctantly, he took them and sat cross-legged in front of her. The whole idea went over better than Sakura expected. Madara was a good study partner (not that she had anyone to compare him to) and the moment when he disagreed with her notes and loudly insisted that they were rubbish, but she shut him up by pulling out the textbook where it said the same thing, found a place among her most treasured memories. Madara's sulking face after being proven wrong was just priceless.

After that incident, Madara took to studying more often with her. He really hated being wrong about anything.

But the final year of the Academy didn't end on cramming as much knowledge as possible into their heads. If that was the case, Sakura would be the unquestionable top of the class. The practical lessons were even more important and took up a lot of time. The intense training sessions exhausted Sakura to the bone.

"The objective of today's exercise is to find 3 different tokens planted in the Academy training grounds," the teacher announced, showing them wooden tokens with symbols of fire, shadow and leaf. "Now, pair up and get going, you have one hour."

Before Sakura could even properly start to despair that she actually knew no one in her class as well as Madara and he obviously had to have a regular partner already, because he was so brilliant, and _oh god what if she'd be the odd one out_, she was grabbed by her sleeve and dragged away.

"Come on, we need to get going," Madara hissed to her.

"Madara, but, what…" she stammered in confusion. Why did he pick her when she was only average in practice? There were better options for partners, even if he didn't like them.

He hushed her, then made her jump up with him onto a higher branch and hide in the leaves.

"The way I see it, we have two options, either wander around the forest like idiots and be vulnerable to attacks or ambush other teams to get what we need fast," Madara said. It was clear which option he preferred.

"_You're_ worried about attacks?" Sakura asked incredulously. Madara twitched with annoyance.

"Last time, they ganged up on me… and my partner ran," he reluctantly admitted.

Sakura took in the information. That would explain why he'd grabbed her right away. It warmed her heart that he trusted her to be his partner… "Wait, you were beaten?" she asked.

"No, I beat them in the end, but I still failed the exercise because I lost my partner."

"Alright…" Sakura breathed in as she thought. "Do you want to ambush specific people or do we set up in one area and wait for whoever falls into a trap?"

Together, they came up with a simple plan of action. Personally, Sakura would have liked to go look for the tokens, but it was logical that there was no guarantee she'd find three different ones on her first try. With the time limit of only one hour, fighting other pairs seemed unavoidable, so they might as well go for it first and hit the competition hard and fast.

They set up their ambush in a convenient spot near a stream on the way back to Academy and waited.

"Incoming," Madara whispered after a while.

Another pair came out of bushes, scratched but sporting triumphant grins.

"That was a piece of cake! We didn't even run into anyone!" a boy said excitedly and his partner nodded.

"Yeah! We're really lucky." After those famous last words, they headed straight for the stream for a drink. Sakura and Madara exchanged a look from opposing sides and pounced.

"If it was so easy, why don't you hand over your tokens and go find yourselves some more?" Madara asked snidely when the boy fell after taking a chopping blow to the head.

"Wha-" the other one managed to pull out a kunai but Sakura tackled him from behind and after a brief scuffle tied his wrists.

After patting their victims down, they found four tokens in total. Madara flicked the extra one onto the bruised forehead of the boy he'd taken down. "Here. Don't say I don't have a heart," he declared with a kingly magnanimity.

Sakura choked on her laughter.

"What?" he asked with an upward quirk of his brow.

"No-Nothing. Pfft." She pressed a hand to her mouth to smother her giggles.

He feigned ignorance, but a shadow of a smile on his lips betrayed that he knew all too well what had her in stitches.

A smoke bomb exploded under their feet.

"Watch out!" Madara pushed her out of the way and took a roundhouse kick to the head in her stead. He flew back and disappeared in the fog.

"Madara!" she called out after him, her eyes stinging as she tried to find him through the dense cloud, before she erupted into a coughing fit.

Apparently, someone else had the same idea to ambush others and waited for the moment they let their guards down to strike.

A blow to the gut doubled her over and Sakura stumbled back, heaving, but then she was grabbed under her arms from behind and effectively immobilized.

"Madara, we have your partner! Give us the tokens and we won't knock her out," her attacker shouted out.

Sakura cursed internally, grasping her predicament. Their opponents were using her as a hostage to blackmail Madara! Smart of them to avoid unnecessary risks, after all they wouldn't stand much of a chance in a fight against him. Sakura bit the inside of her cheek angrily, realizing that she was a liability to her partner.

"Madara, don't listen to them!" she cried out, looking around as she frantically searched for a way to get free.

Silence was her answer.

"Hey, did you hear us?!" her captor yelled again.

Silence again.

"Did he abandon her?" the one holding Sakura asked.

"No, that would be stupid, he can't pass without a partner. Maybe you knocked him out with that kick?"

"But I just grazed him…"

While they talked, Sakura noticed a shadow moving in the dissipating smoke. She tensed up, awaiting the right moment to act in tandem with her partner.

"I'm here," Madara stepped out of the smoke. "Let her go."

"First the tokens. Put them down," ordered their foe. Sakura was now regretting that she hadn't managed to learn all the names of her new classmates by now. She spent entirely too much of her break time hanging out with Madara on the roof when she wasn't looking for Sasuke.

Madara pulled out the tokens from his pocket and slowly bent down to set them on the ground. When their opponents craned their necks to check if the tokens weren't fake, an indigo blur slammed into the first boy. Seizing her chance, Sakura immediately rammed the back of her head into her captor's chin and sprang out of his loosened hold. Then she pivoted on her heel and slugged him with a powerful uppercut, knocking him over like a punching bag.

Casting a quick look around, she noticed that Madara who had given up the tokens vanished. It was a clone. Figures that he knew a technique they hadn't even covered in class yet. The real one took out his opponent in a matter of seconds and stood up, dusting his knees off.

"Let's go," he told her.

"Madara, you're bleeding!" she exclaimed softly, horrified eyes trained on the copious red spilling out of his split brow ridge and dripping onto his shirt. _He took that kick for me…_ she remembered.

"It looks worse than it is," he said with a shrug, but she was already rifling through her meagre supplies. Unfortunately, she forgot to bring any bandages. Sakura thought furiously, then pulled the ribbon off her head.

"Here, I'll wrap it up for you," she said, coming closer.

"You don't have to…" he said dubiously, but she gave him a stubborn look and with a sigh he relented. Sakura wiped the blood off the best she could and tied the ribbon tightly over the wound. He looked sort of like a rogue with a red headband.

"Alright," she said, satisfied with her handiwork, and stepped back. "Let's get going so you can have that properly taken care of."

"And no more falling into ambushes," Madara grumbled. "I'm sick of them."

Sakura could only nod in agreement.

They completed the exercise without any more trouble. Next day, Sakura was blind-sided when Madara presented her with a new red silk ribbon.

"Yours got too dirty, so I got you a replacement," he explained, rubbing the back of his neck. "Just take it," he added impatiently when she still made no move.

"Ah! Sure," she said and picked it from his hand gingerly. She marveled at the softness of the fabric before tying it on her head to keep the long hair out of her face. "Thank you," she said with a happy smile.

He grunted and looked away, but later she caught him sneaking glances at her head with a pleased look on his face. Her own good mood stayed throughout the day too.

_to be continued..._

_._

_._

AN: Thanks for reading! I was blown away by the reviews for the first part. Thank you all so much! :)

Please share your thoughts about this chapter, it would mean a lot to me. Until next time!


	3. Chapter 3

**And They Were Seatmates**

**-3-**

Sakura didn't realize when it happened, but at some point she started regularly meeting up with Madara on the way to school. It just seemed natural and more convenient to do that after she ran into him one morning as she loitered around the entrance to the Uchiha district. Since she no longer shared class with Sasuke, she made a plan to catch him before classes and spend some romantic time together walking to school. Almost like a date! However, this idea spectacularly backfired when Madara came out of the gate and immediately spotted her. His brow crinkled in confusion.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

Her face turned pink and she wrangled her hands together. "N-None of your business! There's no rule I can't be here!"

"Ahh," he made a sound of realization and gave her a knowing look. "Sasuke's already left. Come on, you don't want to be late."

Dejected, she looked at the gate in hopes that Madara lied and Sasuke would come out to meet her, but of course that didn't happen. She sighed and trotted after Madara.

After that incident, Sakura made several more attempts at catching Sasuke leaving the Uchiha district in the morning, but none of them worked, no matter how early she came. And every time Madara showed up with that amused look on his face and, resigned, she went with him to school. Eventually, she gave up on finding Sasuke in the morning as she figured he had to take some different route, but the habit of walking together with Madara stayed.

"Today, we're going to have a sparring practice with Iruka-sensei's class," Goro-sensei announced one day in July, startling Sakura. "Don't go easy on them just because they're younger," he added in warning.

Her heartbeat sped up anxiously. She was going to see Ino and everyone else from her old class again! She felt a twinge of guilt for not visiting any of them, not even Sasuke-kun, for weeks. Fiddling nervously with her new ribbon, she wondered what they would think when they saw her.

Their class headed to the empty Academy training yard and started warming up before the spars while they waited for Iruka-sensei's class to join them. Sakura did her stretches slowly and craned her neck to watch out for her former classmates. Sure enough, the whole noisy group emerged from the Academy building, filling the air with the excited chatter.

Sakura clenched her shaky palms, unsure of what to do. She had a sudden urge to duck behind Madara and hide, but that would've been absurd.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto was the first to spot her and bounded straight up to her. "I missed you! Can you come back to our class? Ino's terrible without you there!"

As expected, Sakura completely ignored everything Naruto had said except the last part. Her eyebrows shot up and she glanced at her quickly approaching rival. "She is?"

"Na-ru-to, shut up!" Ino gritted out with a raised fist and the boy cowered.

"You see?" he asked Sakura with terrified eyes.

She put a hand on her jutted hip. "Terrorizing the class idiot in my absence? That's really unlike you, Pig," she commented coolly.

Ino made a face and flicked some hair from her face. "As if. I'm just picking up _your_ slack in putting him in his place, Forehead," she replied with just as much poise.

Their gazes clashed with enough intensity to produce sparks.

Naruto shrank away from the two kunoichi in fear. "You're both so mean," he whined and got completely ignored.

"Class, warm up!" Iruka-sensei ordered before conferring with the other teacher on the side. The girls broke their eye contact with a mutual put-upon huff.

"We've started early, so I'm finished with that. Want some help bending that stiff back of yours?" Sakura offered gruffly. It was something she'd done often with Ino before the whole transfer.

"Sakura-chan, you could help me!" Naruto cut in with a hopeful look.

"No," she rejected him with annoyance and his expression comically fell. She turned to Ino. "Well?"

Her rival shrugged in response. "If you still remember how, then come."

In the middle of Sakura pushing down on Ino's back to keep her in the stretched position, the other girl asked, "So, who's that guy?"

"Who?"

"The guy that looks like Sasuke-kun. You were standing pretty close to him when we arrived. Who is he, your boyfriend?"

Sakura choked on her spit and turned scarlet. _Madara? Her boyfriend?_ What was that Pig thinking? Did she get hit too hard on the head?

"Sakura-chan has a BOYFRIEND?!" Naruto exclaimed so loud that the whole village must have heard. He was clearly eavesdropping on them. "Who is he?!"

"Shut up! I don't have a boyfriend!" she yelled furiously but the damage was done. Disbelieving looks were sent her way as well as very audible comments.

"… but she and Madara are stuck at the hip? … always disappearing off to somewhere… they walk to school together… obvious they're dating…"

"No… no! Stop that…" Sakura moaned in mortification. She couldn't believe this! How did everyone get this so wrong?!

A spike of killing intent cut the muttering off. A menacing aura rose, threatening to choke them if they breathed wrong. "Shut up. You've heard what she said," Madara spoke up. "If you still have questions, you're all welcome to ask me. I'll make sure you understand _everything…_ completely," he said with a nasty grin that left no doubt that his kind of 'explanation' would be extremely painful for a recipient.

After that threat, there were no more smart comments.

Ino gave Sakura a pointed look. "Are you sure he's not your boyfriend?" she whispered.

"He's a boy and a friend, not 'boyfriend'. Learn a difference, Pig!" Sakura hissed back.

Ino shook her head. "Alright, but that's a shame. If you went out with him, I'd have Sasuke-kun all to myself."

"There's no chance that's happening," Sakura said through gritted teeth.

The teachers put an end to the warm-ups and chattering. The two classes faced off, so Ino and Naruto went back to their side of the yard, and the sparring matches began. Sakura listened to Madara's soft-voiced battle commentary. His cutting analysis of their classmates' style or lack of it always amused her to no end.

"Uchiha Madara and Uchiha Sasuke, step up!" Iruka-sensei called for the next match-up and a hush fell over both classes. These two were undoubtedly the strongest among their peers and everyone was excited to see them fight.

Sakura looked to Madara anxiously, but he appeared unconcerned. He tipped his neck left and right to work out a kink in it. "Well, I'm off to beat up my kid cousin," he said to Sakura and strode into the middle of the circle on the ground. He didn't ask her to wish him luck or expressed any doubt in the outcome of the fight—he simply told her what he was about to do. She wished she could have his confidence in her own skill.

Before Sasuke had the chance to get in there, Naruto leaped into the ring. "I'll fight you first!" he challenged.

"You will?" Madara asked mockingly. Naruto growled.

"Naruto! Get out of the ring!" Iruka shouted in exasperation, but the boy didn't listen.

"And if I win, you'll leave Sakura-chan alone!" Naruto shouted to Madara.

Sakura fought her own urge to jump into the ring and clobber that dumbass. Madara only smirked. "Only if you do the same when I win," he said in a drawl.

"Gah, I hate your face! Take this!"

Naruto charged at Madara full speed, swinging his fist. Madara waited until the last moment, then nimbly sidestepped and wrenched Naruto's arm while tripping him. In two seconds flat, Naruto ended up on his knees, grimacing as Madara put him in a painful armlock.

"You were saying?" Madara asked in a light tone.

"Ow, ow, ow! Let go!" Naruto wriggled in his hold.

"Yield first," Madara demanded.

"Never!" The absolute dunce was unable to admit defeat, this time to his own detriment as Madara only twisted his arm further. The Uchiha looked at the crowd.

"Is this your idiot?" he addressed Sasuke who was at the forefront.

"He's just _an_ idiot," Sasuke replied with an eyeroll.

For Madara that was good enough, because he released Naruto, who scrambled onto his feet, then kicked him towards Sasuke. Luckily for the loudmouth, Sasuke caught him before he fell down on his face.

"Teach him some self-preservation so he doesn't challenge people he has no hope to beat," Madara told his cousin.

"That's an impossible task," Sasuke replied with a scoff.

"You-!" Naruto turned around, spluttering angrily, but Sasuke was already stepping into the ring.

"Naruto!" Iruka-sensei yelled and bonked him on the head. "I'll deal with you later," he said with a warning look and turned back to the class with a cough. "Madara and Sasuke, I want this to be a clean match. Use only taijutsu and remember this is only a spar, alright?" For some reason, he felt it was necessary to caution them, even though he hadn't done that with any other students before.

The two Uchiha boys nodded, seizing each other up and Sakura gulped nervously, feeling torn. The girls from her class, with Ino at the forefront, were cheering on Sasuke. Not so long ago, she'd have joined them without a second thought. She still liked Sasuke-kun, but… no one in her new class was cheering for Madara, though she overheard speculative mutters. _Twenty ryo he breaks the kid's arm again… Nah, they're the same clan, that won't happen… maybe a finger?_ It made her sick.

"Madara!" she shouted on impulse. "Don't lose!"

There. That should have done the trick. She cheered on her seatmate without showing disloyalty to Sasuke-kun.

Madara grumbled something under his breath which she didn't quite catch, but he didn't seem angry, so she decided he was fine with her cheering method.

"Ready, set, begin!" Iruka-sensei started the match.

Sasuke leapt at Madara with an aerial kick which the older boy blocked before throwing Sasuke to the ground. He bounced off, recovering gracefully but Madara was already onto him with a follow-up punch. What followed was the most intense, high speed taijutsu spar Sakura had ever seen. She was too engrossed in watching it to remember about her cheering. Madara had never fought like that before and she realized it was because he'd just never had an opponent of that caliber. With Sasuke, he could cut loose.

_They're both really amazing…_ she thought in awe.

A hard blow connected, sending Sasuke skidding back and almost out of the bounds, but he dug in his heels and stopped just in time. Then something in his eyes flashed red and in a blur, he was onto Madara again, raining blows down on him. Madara parried them, then swiftly grabbed Sasuke by the collar and threw him on the ground. Before he could spring up, Madara's foot was placed threateningly at his throat.

Everyone gasped. The match was over just as abruptly as it had started.

"Winner – Uchiha Madara," Iruka-sensei announced needlessly.

Sakura gawked. She couldn't believe that Sasuke-kun was defeated, but on the other hand… it was against Madara. His ability was beyond peer, which she knew from first-hand observation.

"I… lost? But you… you didn't even use your Sharingan?!" Sasuke blurted out, just as confused as she felt.

Madara took his foot off the boy's throat. "I don't need the Sharingan to beat a snotty brat like you." He extended a hand to the glowering boy to help him up and Sasuke... took it! For the first time, Sakura recognized a true respect for an opponent in his gaze.

"Boys, the seal of reconciliation?" Iruka-sensei reminded them.

They locked their fingers in a customary grip without a fuss and sauntered out of the ring.

"You won," Sakura commented, still impressed, when Madara took back his spot next to her.

"Don't sound so surprised," he replied, crossing his arms.

"I'm not surprised, I'm just… It was a really good match."

He grunted.

"I've never seen Sasuke-kun fight so hard. Everyone says he's a genius, but you gave him a run for his money. Is it because… you both had the same clan training?" she asked hesitantly, brimming with curiosity that masked a certain current of apprehension within her.

Madara cut her a sideways glance and she shifted slightly, having the impression that he was seeing way too deep beneath the surface than she was comfortable with.

"It has nothing to do with training. Some people are just strong," he replied thoughtfully. "The Uchiha clan is the strongest in Konoha and Sasuke is the heir of the main family. It's only expected that he's strong."

"Oh." Sakura looked down on her toes as the disappointment bubbled up inside her. She tried to valiantly squash it, because what else did she expect out of his answer? Detailed training instructions? Madara was right—you were either naturally strong or not. She couldn't fool herself anymore—there was no secret trick, no special training or hidden knowledge that only the ninja clans were privy to. All she had was just the tiny bit of talent that she was learning to use to the best of her ability.

It only occurred to her much later that for the first time ever, Madara had told her something significant about Sasuke and their clan.

"Next match: Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino!" Iruka-sensei called out.

At first, Sakura just stood there, stunned. She was facing off against Ino? Her heart seized up in panic. She didn't feel ready for this. Ino was a clan kid and she was truly strong. Sakura had a chance to win their love rivalry but it was quite different and more complicated than hand to hand combat, which was a straight-forward test of pure fighting ability, something she didn't have much confidence in.

A touch on her shoulder made her jump up and turn her face sharply. Madara frowned at that, taking his hand back. "Go on, it's your turn," he simply said. She swallowed, her clammy hands clenching at her sides as she wrestled herself under control again and took a step towards the ring and her waiting opponent.

"Oh, and Sakura?" Madara added and she craned her neck to look back at him again. He had a light smirk on. "Don't lose."

Sakura straightened her back and nodded. His words had a vulcanizing effect on her that pushed her forward. Putting on her most confident face, she entered the ring.

"What kept you so long, Forehead? Were you saying goodbye to your boyfriend?" Ino taunted, flicking her long ponytail back.

"You should have your ears checked, Pig. I already told you Madara's not my boyfriend," Sakura replied through gritted teeth.

"My hearing is fine. But I was very surprised when I heard you cheering for him and not Sasuke-kun," Ino pointed out.

"I _wasn't_ cheering," Sakura said darkly.

"Sure," Ino drawled.

Iruka-sensei prevented them from continuing their cat fight and instead ordered them to begin the real match. Fueled by her irritation, Sakura threw the first punch, which Ino deflected, before returning the favour. Sakura blocked it and they exchanged a flurry of blows that didn't fully connect. She thought she was handling the fight pretty well and they might actually be equals in taijutsu, when Ino surprised her with a swift low kick. Taken off balance, Sakura fell straight into the path of a flying knee.

Warm blood gushed from her nose and she staggered back. Ino ruthlessly charged forward, pressing her advantage. Sakura's feeble efforts to fend her off didn't work.

She lost. Badly.

"Winner – Yamanaka Ino!" Iruka-sensei announced and made a check on his list, probably to mark their performances. "Seal of reconciliation," he reminded them.

Sakura ignored Ino's hand and painfully dragged herself up from her knees. Only then she locked her fingers with her opponent in the required sign.

"Good match," Ino told her, but the frowning face she made at Sakura's bruises said otherwise.

Sakura shook her head angrily. Ino didn't have to lie to make her feel better. "Stuff it, Pig. Next time, I'll be the one to kick your teeth in," she declared, mustering up all her bravado.

Ino lost that annoying, concerned look right away and adopted a more familiar, haughty one. "In your dreams, Forehead."

Sakura turned on her heel and walked out of the ring. She slinked to Madara's side, bracing herself for his harsh judgement.

"That was pathetic," he simply commented.

She cringed inwardly, then gave him an irritated glare. "What makes you say that?" she bit out sarcastically.

Madara blinked, taken aback by her aggressive tone, which she wouldn't normally use with him if not for adrenaline and emotions still running high after the fight. He let the moment pass without any further comment, then—

"You have blood under your nose," he remarked at last.

She automatically wiped at the spot with her forearm, but it didn't help much apart from smearing what blood hadn't dried already.

"Here." A pack of tissues was pressed into her hand. Sakura quickly took one out, wetted it with her spit and wiped around her nose again, finally succeeding in getting the blood off.

"Thanks," she said tersely, returning the pack to Madara. He pocketed it without a word.

They watched the rest of the matches in silence, though Sakura was too preoccupied with depressing thoughts about her defeat to really pay attention to other fights. One thing was certain—their class raked in majority of the wins. It was to be expected as they were more advanced than the younger students. But Sakura only felt her shame burn harder. She was moved up a year, because Hokage-sama himself thought she was that good of a ninja, but she still got trounced by Ino like nothing had changed.

Was she really that weak? Was that just her true nature?

Sakura fixed a stare on her sandals, bangs falling into her face as she fought the tears pricking her eyes in a valiant effort to preserve the last shreds of her dignity. She only prayed for the class to end already, because she couldn't possibly keep her composure for too long.

When the matches concluded and the teachers let them out for the day, Sakura was one of the first students out of the gates. She didn't know where she was going, only that she needed to get away. She ran vaguely in the direction away from the village center and the prying eyes.

It took her a bit to notice that Madara caught up with her. "What?" she snapped at him, incensed and puzzled at his presence there. Why would he come after a pathetic loser like her?

He tugged on her arm. "Come with me."

With her curiosity piqued, Sakura let him lead her under the thick canopy of trees in the forested area of Konoha.

"What's so important here?" she asked impatiently.

Madara stopped. "This is my family's training field."

Sakura looked around with renewed interest and a bit of apprehension. "If it belongs to your clan, should I really be here?" she asked with uncertainty.

Madara shrugged. "It's very private. The only people who use this place are me and my father. He's always out on jonin missions anyway, so it should be fine."

"Oh. So, why did you bring me here?"

"Your taijutsu is atrocious," he said bluntly.

"You think I don't know that?!" she erupted.

Madara raised his hand. "Let me finish. You're going to practice here."

She blinked in surprise. "I am? Why?"

"Because I'm going to show you how it's done," Madara said.

"You-you will?"

"That's what I said."

"But… why?" she asked, eyes round with disbelief.

His brows were drawn together as he pondered the answer.

"Because… you're not hopeless."

She looked at him in shock. He didn't think she was inherently, unchangeably weak? That she was worthy of training? A flash of warmth burst out of her chest and enveloped her whole.

"Madara! Thank you!" Sakura launched herself at him and gave him a tight hug. "Thank you! Thank you!" The dam burst and tears spilled from her eyes. She was crying and she knew she shouldn't but she was so happy!

"Stop that! It's just some training! Geez!" Madara griped. He may have been startled by her emotional outburst and definitely didn't appreciate her sniffling all over his shirt, but his hands were gentle with her when he put them on her shoulders.

She pulled back, beaming at him with wet eyes. "Sorry," she said and rubbed the tears off her face. "I'll do my best!" she declared enthusiastically.

Her high spirits were dampened after Madara put her through the paces. There was no direct exchange of blows between them, but he had her running through the katas and mercilessly corrected even a single toe out of line. The drills made her sweat like a pig and wheeze for air like a chain-smoker, but she clamped her mouth shut, stifling any complaints. Madara's assistance was the first time in her life she got specialized instruction all to herself. Even if it was from a fellow student, he was still an expert compared to her.

"Madara, what's a Sharingan?" Sakura asked when he allowed her a break, remembering that Sasuke had mentioned it earlier.

"It's the Uchiha bloodline limit," he said shortly.

"Oh." She mulled it over. "Can you show me?"

"No." He turned away with arms crossed.

Her face fell. "Why? Is it hard? What is it even?"

"It's an ocular power." Madara wasn't very forthcoming, but at this point she was illuminated even by these small scraps of information that he gave up. Sakura's mind quickly made a connection with what she'd seen during the Uchiha vs Uchiha match.

"It's red, right? I think I saw Sasuke-kun with red eyes for a moment."

Madara nodded tightly. "Yes, he's already awakened it. Sharingan is the symbol of our power."

"Then why don't you show it to me? It must be famous already, so you don't have to protect its secrecy," Sakura pointed out logically.

He let out a non-descript grunt. "I'm not wasting my chakra," he mumbled without conviction. That sounded like an excuse and a very lame one at that.

Sakura gave him a long look, taking in his tense shoulders and stiff posture. "… Do you have it?" she asked point blank.

Madara's knuckles tightened and turned white as he gripped his shirt by the sides. "I don't need to flaunt it for no good reason-"

"So you don't have it," Sakura surmised.

"… No," he admitted.

"Why?"

He just sighed tiredly. "It just didn't happen, I don't know why. Sometimes it's not meant to be." He repeated that line as if he'd told it to himself a thousand times before. Sakura didn't know much about bloodlines, but the clans were clearly obsessed with them. It was a huge deal, even without knowing all the details.

"If the Sharingan is the pride of the Uchiha clan, then you will definitely get it," she remarked with an encouraging smile. "You're insanely strong anyway, maybe you having it would be too unfair to your opponents?" she said in jest.

Madara smirked back at her. "True."

Sakura felt a warm glow inside. She cheered him up! It felt like a real accomplishment to her.

"But flattering me won't get you out of doing another set!" he said and she groaned but obediently got up to continue with the katas. She wouldn't go back on her promise to him and to herself.

After training she collapsed on the grass, drenched with sweat and unable to move. She was so thoroughly exhausted that Madara had to help her walk home.

.

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AN: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please, share your thoughts in a review, I will greatly appreciate it ;)

Until next time!


	4. Chapter 4

**And They Were Seatmates**

**-4-**

Their additional practice sessions after classes caused Sakura to also leave the school together with Madara every day. She was coming home later and later and soon enough her parents took notice.

"Where are you disappearing off to, Sakura? You're too young to wander around until late evening. And I need you home to help with chores!" her mother said with disapproval.

"Mom, I'm training!" Sakura said with exasperation.

"Oh, really? Alone? And where?"

"No, not alone, with a friend, at training grounds…"

"What friend? That girl, Ino, right?" her mother guessed, very, very wrongly. Ino was the only friend Sakura's parents knew about. They still hadn't gotten the memo about the girls' falling out.

Now Sakura had a simple choice—she should clear up the misunderstanding and tell her mother about Madara. Instead, she frantically nodded.

"Yes, that's her!" she said.

"Weren't you two arguing about some boy?"

Sakura paled slightly. So mom remembered _something_ about that after all.

"It's all in the past! We made up," she lied through her teeth.

"Well, that's good. And where do you go to train?"

"Training grounds, I told you. They belong to her clan."

"Hmm." Her mother sighed. "Alright. But don't spend over there too long. Training is no excuse for not doing your chores, Sakura!" she scolded, wagging a finger at her.

Like a dutiful daughter, Sakura nodded and promised to do better, but on the inside she felt like a wretch. She lied to her own mother. She didn't understand why, but she just couldn't bring herself to tell her about Madara. What if her mother disapproved of their friendship because he was a boy? She'd probably think that staying out late with him was scandalous. She might even ground Sakura and ban her from ever training with him again.

What was worse, Sakura knew her mother might easily see Ino around and ask her about their training, and then the whole lie would be discovered. She couldn't let it happen!

All these matters kept Sakura up at night as she tossed and turned in worry. She slept badly and woke up at sunrise.

When the lunch break started, Sakura squared her shoulders and went in search of Ino. She found her in the schoolyard, in their old lunch place under the cherry tree.

"Hi, Ino-pig," Sakura said, trying to act relaxed, when on the inside she was a ball of nerves.

"Forehead? What brings you here from the classroom of advanced geniuses?" Ino replied nonchalantly.

"Can I… can I eat lunch here?"

Ino gave her a once over. Sakura fiddled with her hands clasped in front of her.

"Sure."

Sakura awkwardly sat down next to her and opened her bento. The girls ate together in uneasy silence, so unlike their usual loud bickering or the happy chatter from the old times. Even though she came to Ino for a reason, something prevented Sakura from speaking up. Instead, she just kept shooting anxious glances in Ino's direction and fidgeting in her indecision.

Finally, Ino sighed and turned towards her.

"Well? What's this about? Spit it out, Forehead. I don't have all day."

"Ah… um… It's about my mother."

Ino's eyebrow shot up in intrigue. Sakura swallowed and continued. "If you see her around and she asks you if I'm training with you after school, just tell her yes."

"Oh, I see…" Ino said slowly. "You want me to cover up for you. So what are you really doing, Forehead?" she asked with a devilish grin.

"Will you do it?" Sakura pressed, cursing inwardly. That's exactly what she wanted to avoid, more questions and Ino butting into her business!

"I can, but only if you tell me what's this really about."

"You don't need to know," Sakura insisted, but Ino would have none of it.

"Yeah, but I want to! I'm here doing you a favour, Forehead, so spill!"

With a sigh, Sakura gave in and told her about training with Madara and lying to her mother. Ino whistled.

"Sakura, you sure you didn't replace Sasuke-kun for this guy?"

"What are you saying?! I like only Sasuke-kun!" Sakura exclaimed in outrage.

Ino pouted. "But they're both Uchiha. I think you have a type," she teased.

"Why did I even tell you anything at all?" Sakura groaned, rubbing at her temples tiredly.

"Tsk, because you used me for your little lie, Forehead. Now you have to pay!" Ino's eyes gleamed demonically and Sakura gulped, knowing that she had no choice but to listen to her rival's demands.

And that's how Sakura ended up sneaking glances at Madara as they walked to the training grounds. She was thinking up a strategy to approach and get what she wanted out of him, leaving him none the wiser to her true objective. At least Ino made the task easy on her because the matter was just as essential to Sakura.

She and Madara reached the training grounds and put down their bags under a tree when she decided to make her move.

"So, you never told me when's your birthday," she said.

"Yes, I didn't," he deadpanned and pulled out a water bottle.

She pouted. "You were supposed to answer me."

"Was there a question in there? I didn't hear any." Madara unscrewed the cap and took a gulp.

"When's your birthday?" she tried asking again.

"Why should I tell you?"

"So I can get you something for it! I need to know when it is," she said in exasperation.

"Ah. No need then. I don't celebrate it." He turned away, deeming the conversation over, and started warming up while Sakura stared after him in stunned silence.

But she was not going to let it finish just like that! She had so many questions and she would drag the answers out of him! Shaking off her shock, Sakura took a spot opposite him and began the exercises in mirror to him.

"Hey, so is this a clan thing? The Uchiha don't celebrate birthdays?" she asked in a softer tone.

"No, just me," he gave a clipped answer.

If she wasn't touching her hands to her toes, she would have put a hand over her chest and sighed in relief. But she didn't. What he said was too worrying.

"But why? Everyone likes birthdays," she pointed out with a frown. She couldn't understand the logic.

Madara shrugged and stretched his torso to the right. "I guess I'm just not everyone. My father never celebrated it and I have no desire to start."

Sakura gaped now, horrified. "That's… that's terrible!" she blurted out with feeling. His own father didn't celebrate his son's birthday?! No cake, no gifts, no singing? Madara had been deprived of all of that all his life?! 'Terrible' was an understatement, this was a crime!

Madara shrugged, unperturbed. "It's fine."

Sakura couldn't help it—she stomped her foot down. Enough was enough! "No, it's not fine! It's completely unfair!" she shouted. "Madara, if everyone else gets to have birthdays, so should you! Tell me when's your birthday and I'll get you the best birthday gift ever! And a cake! And the party!"

He ran a hand through his unruly hair and gave out a frustrated sigh. "Sakura… I don't want a party or any of this other stuff. So just drop it."

She crossed her arms stubbornly and gave him a skeptical look. "You could be saying it only because you've never got one. You don't know what you're missing out on."

Madara shook his head. "That's not it."

"Then what?"

He looked away in a peculiar, melancholic way. "It's just a bad day, that's all… I don't have a mood to celebrate it."

"But why? Why is it bad?" she asked, trying to understand so hard.

"Sakura…" He exhaled, then gave up and looked her straight in the eye. "It's the anniversary of my mother's death."

For the second time during this conversation, she was stunned into silence. She stopped breathing and her eyes widened in shock. Madara was starting to finally make sense. This was why he only ever mentioned his father in passing. But to lose his mother on his birthday? That was just too cruel for words.

"I-I'm sorry," she mumbled, ashamed for pressing him so much to reveal that secret.

Madara sighed again. "It's fine. I just don't want to talk about this." He looked into a distance. "I'm going for a run," he told her and took off at a jogging pace.

Sakura waited for a bit, coming to grips with what she'd learned, then ran in the opposite direction around the training grounds. They passed each other in the middle. Madara wore a dark but absent look and he didn't even glance at her. He was in a different place mentally. Sakura ducked her head and focused on running ahead as fast as she possibly could.

At least it gave her some time to think. When they met up again for their usual katas, she knew what she wanted to say.

"Madara, please tell me when's your birthday. I promise I won't do anything about it, but I'd still like to know. Mine is on March twenty-eighth."

"In the beginning of spring? Your parents really named you right," Madara commented. "Alright. Mine's on December twenty-fourth."

"Thank you!" She brightened up. December 24, December 24, she had to remember it!

"And Sasuke's is July twenty-third," Madara told her and her jaw dropped. He smirked at her gobsmacked expression. "You think I wouldn't realize why you even asked me about that? I knew this was really about Sasuke from the start. Oh, and you'll catch a fly if you stay like this."

Sakura closed her mouth with an audible click. "Wait, if you knew, why did you tell me anyway? I thought you were keeping his secrets out of the clan solidarity?" she asked as she recovered from the surprise of being found out by him.

"It's not a secret and you're welcome to harass that brat on his birthday. It could do him some good." Then, he added under his breath, "Just leave mine alone."

Sakura wasn't sure she'd be able to do that, but for the sake of peace she made no further argument. She got the information she came here for and much, much more than expected. That was a good start. However, she still remained quietly bothered by Madara's birthday situation, though she did her best to put it out of her mind for the time being.

As the summer break started, Sakura and Ino plotted. After their plans were put to motion, there was just one more thing to do… Sakura steeled herself and went to the usual training grounds in the morning after finishing with her chores.

She found Madara sitting cross-legged on a flat rock with his eyes closed. Deciding to be stealthy and surprise him, she softened her footsteps.

"Hello, Sakura," Madara said without opening his eyes.

She paused mid-step, one foot in the air. He managed to turn the tables on her and she was the one surprised.

"You're ten paces behind me, thirty degrees to the left, under that oak," he pointed out her location with incredible precision.

"How did you know that?" she asked, walking up to him.

Madara opened one eye to look at her. "Chakra sensing."

Sakura's memory flashed back to the one time Iruka-sensei had briefly mentioned that ability in a lecture last year. "You can do it? Isn't it supposed to be very hard?"

Madara shrugged. "It is hard," he admitted laconically.

"So, how does it feel like?" she asked with a curious tilt of her head as she sat down next to him.

"Chakra? Normal, I guess… Yours is kind of pink," he said with a smirk.

The same bright shade spilled over her cheeks like a watercolor paint. "You… you just made that up to tease me. You can only _see_ a colour, not sense it!" Sakura remarked smartly.

"Mhmm, true. But… the feeling your chakra gives off is best described by 'pink'. So I'm going with that."

Sakura sighed. What did that even mean? Sometimes trying to figure out how Madara's mind worked was downright impossible. Best not to dwell on it.

"So why did you come here so early? We agreed on afternoons for taijutsu practice," Madara asked.

"Oh! Actually, I came to invite you to a party."

Madara frowned. "A party?"

Sakura nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, I'm organizing it with Ino and others from my old class. It's a surprise birthday party for Sasuke-kun. You should come too, you're his relative after all."

Actually, Sakura and Ino's original plan had been to give Sasuke their gifts and best wishes in a private setting. However, since his birthday fell during a summer break and it was so difficult to catch him outside of school, to secure his attendance it was necessary to rope in others to help, mainly Shikamaru with his extremely useful shadow techniques. If Shikamaru was onto it, it meant that his best friend Chouji was too and only wanted the cake, then Kiba overheard and blabbered to everyone else, so by that point Naruto joining up was inevitable and then Shino and Hinata didn't want to be left out. Through this snowball effect majority of their old class got involved in the plan and they had to turn it into a party.

When Madara remained silent, Sakura panicked, fearing he was going to decline the invitation. She grasped for something more enticing to say. "We'll have cake!" she blurted out.

"Cake? You think that's going to convince me?" he asked with clear amusement.

"Well, it's a very delicious cake…" she trailed off uneasily. "Look, as I said you are Sasuke's family, that's a good enough reason to come." Madara gave her a skeptical look, clearly disagreeing. "And without your help, this party wouldn't have happened!" she added.

"I didn't do anything," he countered.

"You told me the date, remember? That's plenty."

Madara grunted dismissively and Sakura threw her arms down in frustration. She bit her lip, thinking furiously.

"Have you ever been to a birthday party?" she asked.

"… No," he admitted.

Her eyes lit up triumphantly. "See, this is your first chance to go! Don't squander it! You don't know when it could be useful!" Sakura was never much for improvising, but she was speaking from the heart this time, which made it much easier.

"I honestly doubt that," Madara replied in a droll voice and closed his eyes, concentrating on the chakra sensing.

Sakura stared at him stubbornly, then sighed, the fight leaving her. "I just don't understand. Why don't you want to go?" she asked in a dejected tone.

Madara exhaled just as deeply and looked her straight in the eye.

"Why do you want me to go?" he calmly countered.

"I, um… that is…" Sakura mumbled and hang her head down. She plucked a blade of grass and started playing with it. "I'm not sure, just… I guess because you're my friend." She blushed after finally saying out loud what she'd felt for a long while, then shyly looked up at him.

Heavy frown marred Madara's brow as he puzzled out her answer. "That's it?"

Sakura gave a nod. "Yeah, and I thought it will be _fun_ and, and…" she floundered as she couldn't come up with the right words to describe her tangled thoughts and feelings. "You do so much for me, Madara, and it's like I do nothing for you…" she said quietly, averting her gaze to the ground.

Silence fell upon them both.

"Alright."

Sakura whipped her head up. "You're going to come?!" she asked, green eyes sparkling with excitement.

Madara grimaced. "I didn't say that." Sakura slumped in disappointment. "But…" he said and she perked up, her attention again on him. "I will need some help with this chakra sensing training. Are you in?"

"Sure!" she chirped with a huge smile.

And that's how over the summer break Sakura got roped into making various attempts to attack Madara by surprise. Or had to hide herself from him as he searched for her only with the chakra sensing. However, the training benefitted her too as she got to improve on her stealth and tactics.

Sasuke's birthday party took place in a good, shady spot by the Naka river. It was actually Naruto who showed it to Sakura and Ino. The girls loved it so much, they were in total agreement about using it.

The party was going well, everyone finished their tasks on time, Shikamaru and Chouji got the birthday boy to come without problems, the food was good… Sakura gave her well wishes and a present to Sasuke-kun (it was a new atlas of all shinobi nations which she splurged her monthly allowance on. She thought it was a pretty good, practical gift, all things considered and she'd noticed a while back that Sasuke-kun had an interest in geography. Shikamaru for some strange reason gave him ear plugs, smirking all the while. _Boys_, honestly.) However, as her old classmates converged together to talk about things she had no clue about and Ino held court, Sakura stuck out like a sore thumb. She drifted to the side with her plate and a piece of cake, feeling like an outsider. Did she really have nothing in common with them anymore, just because she had changed class?

Sakura tried to imagine what it would be like if she asked people from her class and she realized probably no one would have showed up. She didn't make any friends or at least close acquaintances there, and Madara refused to come… She sighed deeply and a depressed cloud hovered over her head.

A hand clapped her on the shoulder. "What's with the long face? I thought this was supposed to be a fun party, not a funeral?"

Sakura jumped up and whirled around. "Madara! You're here- but- I thought-!" she exclaimed in surprise and elation at seeing him there.

"I got hungry and you said something about a cake…" he replied with a shrug.

"Oh! Oh yeah, sure, I'll get you…" Sakura turned to cut him a slice and saw Chouji gobbling up the remaining big piece of the birthday cake. "… Nevermind." She looked down at her own untouched slice, then with a pang of longing made her decision. "You can have mine. I'm on a diet anyway," she told him resolutely, extending her plate towards him.

He didn't take it. "Nah, you eat it. I'm good."

"Madara? I didn't expect you here." Sasuke came up to them, hands in pockets in deceptive nonchalance, but Sakura didn't miss his tense shoulders.

"I was in the vicinity and heard there's a party for my kid cousin," Madara said without batting an eye, then winked at Sakura and with a start she realized that he found the location by sensing chakra! So the training was already bringing results! "Here, I brought you something."

Madara pulled a ball out of the bag and threw it at Sasuke who caught it in both hands.

"A ball?" he asked in confusion.

"Let's play," Madara challenged with a smirk.

A competitive glint appeared in Sasuke's eyes. "You're on," he accepted with a smirk of his own. As they stood next to each other wearing identical expressions, Sakura could have sworn they were brothers.

"Play? What are we gonna play?" Kiba butted in loudly, drawing everyone's attention to the scene.

The ball was like a magnet for all the boys at the party and they crowded around Sasuke and Madara with excitement. Sakura didn't exactly understand how it worked, but she was interested in a game too, even if a little unsure if it was really a good idea. There was some underlying tension between the two Uchiha boys and she couldn't tell if it was just rivalry or something different.

"So, what are we playing?" Shikamaru asked with a keen look on his face. Even that slacker was pulled in by the power of the ball!

Sasuke took in their surroundings and the people.

"Dodgeball," he decided.

"And the rules?"

"Ninja style. Anything goes."

Sakura's bad feeling intensified. To quell it, she scarfed down her piece of cake. The sweetness in her mouth made her feel slightly better.

.

.

AN: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed. Please tell me your thoughts about the chapter, I will be grateful :)

Until next time!


	5. Chapter 5

**And They Were Seatmates**

**-5-**

The playing field for a dodgeball game was quickly painted on the grass thanks to Naruto and his vandalizing ways—that kid always carried around a can of spray paint. Then Sasuke and Madara picked their teams.

Sakura found Madara's choices weird. Well, picking Chouji made sense, he was a big guy and had a lot of strength, but Hinata? The girl was a wallflower that barely said anything and her scores were average at best, from what Sakura vaguely remembered. It was so like Madara to be so arrogant and sure of his own ability that he didn't care if the rest of his team were all weak links.

"Pick me! Pick me!" Naruto chanted next to her, jumping up with a raised hand, but both Sasuke and Madara ignored him.

"Shut up!" she hissed in annoyance. "Yelling won't make them pick you any faster!"

But they weren't picking her too. She could understand Sasuke-kun, he had no idea about her improvement, but Madara?!

Shino went to Sasuke's team, with Kiba and Shikamaru among others, and the only ones left were Ino, Naruto and her. It was Madara's turn. Sakura crossed her arms with an expectant look. Now he had to pick her at last.

Madara's gaze bypassed her entirely. "Yamanaka," he called.

Sakura eyes widened in disbelief.

Ino groaned in disappointment and shuffled over to join Madara's side. She obviously wanted to be on Sasuke's team.

Now the choice was just between Sakura and Naruto and it was Sasuke's turn.

"Hey, bastard! Pick me finally! I want to play!" Naruto shouted.

"Sakura, come on," Sasuke said, ignoring the idiot that automatically got assigned to Madara's team.

While she should have been more elated that she got onto Sasuke's team, she was too preoccupied with Madara snubbing her in favour of Ino-pig to cheer on this victory.

Trust Naruto to provide a distraction just when she needed one.

"This works better for me! I'm going to smash that ball right in your face, Sasuke!" he taunted dramatically.

"Haaa?! I won't let you!" Ino shouted at him.

"Hey, whose side you're on?!" Naruto protested.

Shino and Hinata were sent to positions behind enemy lines to catch the ball when it would go out of bounds and attack from the back. Sakura was glad that she wasn't chosen for that role because she really wanted to see that pig's face when she hit her with a ball. Shannaro!

Then the match began.

Sasuke threw a hard, curved ball straight at Madara with intention of taking him out instantly in a humiliating way, but Madara easily caught it and returned the attack. Sasuke caught that too, establishing that, individually, they were evenly matched. With that out of the way, they switched to picking off others on the opposing teams first.

It became quite clear who was gunning for who when they started using ninja techniques to gain an edge. Shikamaru pulled off a successful combo with Sasuke and eliminated Chouji by putting him in a shadow bind, so he couldn't defend himself. Madara retaliated by throwing a couple shuriken with his other hand, so that Shikamaru couldn't dodge out of the way and got hit by the ball.

Over the course of the game, many others were eliminated, until somehow the ball found its way into Hinata's hands. The girl however messed her chance when Naruto distracted her with his loud cheering. She threw it too lightly and after a bounce, it was caught by Sakura. Before that she had solely targeted Ino who had evaded all of her attacks. This time Sakura first looked at the ball, then at the smirking, ready blonde on the opposite side.

Then she glimpsed Madara not even paying attention to her and something inside her snapped. With all her might, Sakura hurled the ball at him.

Despite having the element of surprise, Sakura underestimated Madara's speed. Without even a single handseal, he pulled off a flawless substitution.

Naruto bowled over as he was clobbered in the head by the ball. "Ouch!" he yelped. "What happened?!"

"You're out," Madara replied.

"What, but I was just over there-! You bastard, you took my place!" Naruto screamed in outrage, pointing a finger at Madara.

"Yeah, now scram," he only said with disinterest.

Naruto made a face and kicking up the dirt, stalked off the playing field.

Sakura felt a little bad for him, she didn't even mean to hit him, but it was all on Madara's shoulders. She honestly didn't expect he'd use his own teammate to take the hit for him. On the other hand, she was pretty thrilled that she pushed him so far. If only she'd gotten him with that surprise attack! That would have taught him a lesson!

"That was a good try," Sasuke said to her and she reddened instantly. That was a compliment, wasn't it?

"Thanks," she replied shyly.

He nodded towards the other team. "Better get ready."

Sakura bent her knees and focused back on the game. She really needed to figure out how to take out her rival. A buzz in her ear gave her a burst of inspiration.

"Ino! What's that gross bug in your hair? A new accessory?" she jeered.

"Bug, what bug? I hate bugs!" Predictably, the pig freaked out and started touching all over her head in a futile attempt to get rid of her imaginary passenger. Then, in her panicked thrashing, she noticed Shino, who was the opposing team member stationed behind her team and a known bug-lover. Stomping her foot, Ino approached him with murder in her eyes. "This must be your fault! Get it off me, now! Ow!" She stumbled when the ball slammed into her turned back. She whirled around and spotted grinning Sakura.

"You're out!" Sakura called triumphantly to her rival.

"Damn it, Forehead! That was dirty!"

"All's fair in love and war!" Sakura replied cheekily. "Don't worry, Pig, there's no bug. I almost can't believe you fell for it."

Ino straightened up and brushed her clothes off. "Ugh. Fine, you win this time. But next time I'll defeat you fair and square!" she declared, flipped her long ponytail back and left the field.

"It seems I lost all my teammates, except Hyuuga," Madara commented calmly and rolled his shoulders, unfazed by his situation. It was three to one, four if counting Shino waiting at his back to knock him out of the game if he allowed the ball through. Madara picked it up from where it fell after hitting Ino. "Well, it's time to get serious."

Before Sakura could question how he hadn't been serious before, if he'd even used shuriken and sacrificed Naruto, a thick cloud of smoke enveloped the field. _Smoke bomb! _she thought and realized in a flash that while her team now had zero visibility, Madara could pinpoint their positions by their chakra. They were easy pickings!

"Sasuke-kun! Watch out!" she called in warning and threw herself in what she hoped was his direction.

The last thing she saw was Sasuke's surprised expression and then pain exploded in the back of her head and turned everything dark.

.

"Sakura! Sakura, wake up!"

She sluggishly opened her eyes and winced from the pounding in her head.

There were blurry faces around her, but they moved around too much. She was going to be sick.

She groaned and turned over before doing just that. Her body shook like a leaf while she expelled the remains of her lunch and that delicious cake. If she wasn't so out of it, she'd have been mortified at being seen like this, but at the moment she didn't care.

Shouts rang around her but she couldn't understand the words as if they were on a bad recording. She fought another wave of nausea. A hand gripped her shoulder.

"Get up, I'm taking you to the hospital." The voice, she knew the voice!

"You?! You knocked her out!" another raised a protest.

"I didn't intend to. She jumped in front of that ball, I couldn't do anything."

"Says you!"

"Ask Sasuke or Hyuuga, she must have seen it with her Byakugan."

"You must be crazy to think we'd let you take her anywhere alone."

"Can you carry her all the way to the hospital?" A scoff. "I thought so."

The world was coming into focus. She still felt light-headed but she could see better. "Madara?" she asked weakly.

"Yeah, I'm here." He leaned closer and put one hand on her back and the other under her knees. "Try to hold on to me." With a grunt, Madara hefted her up. Sakura put her arms around his neck tightly, afraid she'd fall off, but he had a good grip on her. "We're going."

Their trip to the Konoha hospital passed for Sakura in a blur of wind as she clung to Madara and tried not to barf all over him. The medic there treated her for a severe concussion and she had to stay the night for observation, even though nausea and shaking were already gone.

"I want to go home," she complained as she reclined in the hospital bed. She felt fine!

Madara settled in a visitor's chair and crossed his arms. "What you did was pretty stupid," he said without preamble.

"Oh yeah? But if I didn't do that, Sasuke-kun would've been hit," she said. For her it was just an obvious thing to do.

"And he would've been fine. I wasn't aiming at his head and a little bruised ego wouldn't have hurt him," Madara pointed out.

Sakura pouted, but she wasn't backing down. "Well, maybe I didn't want us to lose," she replied.

"So you sacrificed yourself like an idiot?" Madara asked snidely.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "It's better than using your teammate like a meat shield," she shot back.

"It's not if it landed you in the hospital for nothing," he countered, returning the glare.

"It wasn't for nothing, we won! Two to one," she crowed triumphantly.

"Actually, it was probably a draw. Hyuuga took out Inuzuka after you were down. So it ended undecided with just Sasuke and me left." Madara dropped that bombshell on her without a trace of consideration for her delicate state.

"Uh…" Hot air escaped her and Sakura scrambled for something to save face. "At least I have honour!"

"And all it got you is a concussion," Madara pointed out harshly, then sighed. His next words were softer and measured, but somehow packed a lot more punch. "The point is to know if it's the right time and place before you go and sacrifice yourself. Will you jump into a flying kunai next time?"

Sakura wavered, finally understanding what he was getting at this whole time. "I… I didn't think about it this way…"

"Exactly. What you did was pointlessly reckless. Don't do it again."

"I won't," she agreed contritely and Madara nodded with satisfaction.

"Good."

Some tension bled out of his posture and he let himself slouch a little. In that moment he appeared thoughtful and worn out to Sakura, like a wise sage, not a kid only a few months older than her. She observed him through half-lidded eyes, thinking back on everything and realized that he was worried. But that didn't let him off the hook.

Sakura looked at the window which gave her a partial view of the Hokage Mountain. "Madara, why did you pick Ino for your team?" she asked idly.

He gave her a curious look. "No particular reason, I just had to pick someone."

"Then why didn't you pick me?" she demanded, letting her hurt feelings show on her face. She was his friend, not Ino…

"I figured you wanted to be on Sasuke's team…" he trailed off with a confused, helpless look so unlike the usual self-assured Madara she knew.

"Oh… Oh, yeah… I wanted to…" Sakura quickly rubbed her eyes. All that time she assumed he'd snubbed her on purpose and to find out that he'd been actually trying to do something nice for her! The relief was staggering. She couldn't help it—she sniffled. "Thanks for thinking about me… and for bringing me here, I guess." She gave him a watery smile.

Madara's face contorted before he let out a deep groan and rolled his eyes. "You don't have to cry about it, it's not a big deal."

"I know," she told him. "Sorry."

Madara grunted and got up. "I'm going to get some snacks. Do you want something?"

Sakura startled and reached for her purse. "Yeah, anything sweet will be fine. Do you need money?"

"No. It's my treat."

He opened the door and paused, then glanced over his shoulder. "By the way, you're welcome," he said quickly and left.

Sakura smiled after him, knowing full well that he wasn't referring to the snacks, but her earlier thanks.

Not long after, her parents came to see her and Sakura's most dreaded scenario had come to pass—they met Madara. However, contrary to her worst expectations, instead of wanting him to stay away from her, they were charmed. She was gaping as she watched him have a completely ordinary conversation with them. After he'd left, her mother even mentioned that it was fortunate that Sakura had such a polite boy for a classmate, no wonder, the Uchiha were an old and respectable clan.

Sakura was confused by this turn of events, but took it in stride. When she finally got home from the hospital the next day, she offhandedly broached the subject of her possibly training with "Madara-kun" so she could better defend herself from stray balls flying at her head at high velocity, _he's the best student in my class, mom, you know._ She got the permission pretty easily and could call off her arrangement with Ino before the pig came up with another idea for a payment.

The training sessions over the summer break went well and Sakura managed to avoid any more serious injuries. She became really good at hiding her presence, but Madara was even better at detecting it. The only way to get a drop on him were ranged attacks from outside his radius. Moreover, when he concentrated on sensing chakra, he was unable to perform any ninjutsu, which was a weakness he was working to overcome.

One day near the end of August they were about to start their hide and seek game, when Madara turned to her. "Did you know you were followed?" he asked. She didn't but he wasn't waiting for her reply. He cocked his head and looked up a tree. "Aren't you going to come down and say hello?"

Sakura eyed the tree warily, uncomfortable that someone was watching them and she had no idea, then gasped in surprise when a boy in a blue shirt jumped gracefully off the branch.

"Sasuke-kun!" she called his name, delighted. "Good morning!" she added, remembering her manners.

Sasuke put his hands in pockets. "Sakura," he acknowledged her presence like never before. On the outside she was wide-eyed and blushing, but on the inside she was dancing in victory. Clearly, she left the rest of her competition in the dust. Shannaro!

"Is there a reason you came all this way after Sakura?" Madara asked, looking amused.

Sasuke shrugged. "I was curious what she was doing around here. These are private Uchiha training grounds."

"Ah, so it has nothing to do with how you never thanked her after she saved you from being utterly decimated by me at dodgeball?"

Sakura goggled at him—Sasuke-kun was starting to resemble a tomato!

"Right…" he mumbled. "Thanks for… helping me out back then," he told her awkwardly, avoiding a direct eye contact.

"Ah, sure… You're welcome," she replied.

"And you wouldn't have decimated me, I still had a fighting chance," Sasuke added, defiantly looking at Madara, who only quirked his eyebrow skeptically.

"Yeah, right. You keep telling yourself that."

Sasuke gave him a hard, challenging look, which Madara smirked at.

"Um, Sasuke-kun, would you like to stay and train with us?" Sakura offered, breaking the tension between the boys. Allowing them to fight unsupervised by any adult seemed like an exceptionally bad idea. The boys gave her identical looks of surprise. "You see, Madara could use someone new to practice with, he knows my chakra too well. And I have extra onigiri packed for lunch, I wouldn't eat them all anyway, but I shouldn't waste food. What do you say?"

Sasuke considered her in a new way, then glanced warily at Madara. "Maybe another time," he replied and abruptly turned to go. "See you around," he threw a nonchalant goodbye over his shoulder and walked away.

"Bye!" Sakura called after him. When he was out of sight, she released a deep, forlorn sigh, slumping her shoulders in defeat. At least it was worth a try. Then she tossed a glare at Madara. "Did you have to scare him off?" she snapped.

"I didn't do anything, you saw he left by himself," Madara defended himself with a scowl. "I _could_ use a new practice partner for chakra sensing," he admitted grudgingly. "Someone whose tricks I don't know."

"Hey!" she reacted to the dig.

"Face it, I know every trick in your book. It's either me getting a new partner or you getting a new repertoire," Madara said with a small smirk. He really enjoyed riling her up!

Sakura's eyebrow twitched. "You'll take that back when I nail you with my newest trick. You'll never see it coming!" she declared hot-headedly and despite in fact having nothing new to try. But that's what improvisation was for. She'd make do.

Madara took his stance, knees slightly bent, arms open, and grinning wildly. "Bring it on then," he said.

Sakura did just that.

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AN: Thanks for reading! Please let me know your thoughts about the chapter! :)

Until next time!


	6. Chapter 6

AN: This story is back! Have an extra long chapter to make up for the long wait.

* * *

**And They Were Seatmates**

**-6-**

The summer break passed in a blink of an eye and soon it was time to go back to school. Most students were less than enthusiastic about that, but not Sakura, who was bursting with excitement as she entered the class. They were finally going to learn another technique after the substitution—Henge or the art of transformation. The ability to change her own appearance any way she wished appealed to her girlish vanity, however it was the novelty of the challenge that made it so interesting. Creating a solid shell of chakra that could cover her every inch or even taller, depending on the target height of the transformation, required her to move and stretch her chakra in a way she'd never tried before. To add to the difficulty, it was a chakra intensive technique and she was already at a disadvantage, being younger a year than the rest of the class and therefore lacking bigger reserves of chakra.

Sakura threw herself into practice with gusto. Even though she had to pace herself so as not to use up all her energy at once, she still picked up on the technique fairly quickly. To no one's surprise, Madara was the first to master it out of their class, but he didn't share her enthusiasm towards the technique and its many possible uses.

"It's a disguise, could be good for diversion," he said dismissively. "It won't be useful to me. I won't need to hide my identity when I reach for my goal." A hard glint appeared in his eyes, but in a blink it was gone.

She never learned what that goal might be.

After everyone in class got the hang of the transformation, for their final ninjutsu lesson they tackled Bunshin, or the clone jutsu. From the technical standpoint, it was the most difficult art as it combined skills needed for both Kawarimi and Henge. The user aimed to create a chakra shell in their own image and anchor it at a distance from their real body in order to confuse the enemy.

Sakura truly didn't expect to face any difficulty with it, which made her struggle so perplexing. To successfully perform the technique, Academy required the clone to last two minutes, but her copy flickered and vanished after only ten seconds. Then, there was the other glaring problem.

She couldn't get the clone to look right.

It was laughable, really. She had no problem with transforming into another person, but for some reason her clones never looked perfectly like her, making them effectively useless.

She hit the wall and she didn't know what to do.

"Work on your mental image and stamina," Goro-sensei said unhelpfully as he examined the result of her efforts before moving on to the next student.

Sakura hang down her head, feeling like a giant failure. Her fists clenched at her sides and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep her turbulent emotions in check. She just didn't understand it! She followed the instructions perfectly! What was she doing wrong?! Until now, she'd always picked up jutsu pretty quickly. She did Kawarimi right on her first try and she got the hang on Henge after only a day of practice. She should have had this one in the bag. But she… didn't.

Predictably, Madara had no such trouble with the technique. "It's just another rubbish jutsu. All it's good for is confusing your opponent. If you need a distraction, there are hundreds other ways to do it without wasting chakra on such a transparent technique," he criticized bluntly after school.

If he thought this was going to cheer her up, he was dead wrong. Sakura sank into herself even more. If she couldn't do even the most basic Academy jutsu, then what hope did she have to become a kunoichi?

"I bet we'll never need to actually make a clone for anything on a real mission. It's better to concentrate on a strong defense so you can protect yourself from attacks instead of resorting to clones. Weapons pass through them anyway, so you can't even use them as a meat shield," Madara continued his merciless takedown of the Bunshin jutsu, unaware of the storm brewing inside her. "Why they even teach it to us, I have no idea. It is completely useless." He kicked a stone to the side of the road with a scowl.

"Easy for you to say," Sakura snapped. "Some of us aren't so fortunate to come from a ninja clan and learn family jutsu. Some of us weren't born with huge chakra reserves. For some of us, those Academy _useless_, _rubbish_ techniques are all we have. That's all we get to learn!" she shouted into his shocked face, feeling close to tears, then ran away.

"Sakura! Wait!" he called after her, but she only ran faster.

Hot tears spilled out over her face and blurred her vision as she weaved through the forest. She narrowly avoided running into any trees, her feet pounding the ground at full speed until her leg muscles were burning and spasming. Sakura slowed down and came to a stop, wheezing and clutching at the stitch in her side as she doubled over. Stumblingly, she leaned against a rough trunk and caught her breath.

After she rested a little, she opened her eyes again and realized that she ended up in a part of the forest she hadn't visited in a long time. It was her old childhood haunt, her secret hideout where she'd come to play by herself in the times before Ino. Out of curiosity, she peeked inside the hollowed tree. She'd taken out her toys and other knickknacks, but the paper flowers she'd hang up were still there, making her smile. It was dusty after years of disuse and by the looks of it, some animal at one point had lived in there, so she opted to stay outside. She had no energy or desire to clean the place up at the time.

On the other hand, she sure did not want to go to Madara's training field for practice that day, so having her own place to train sounded like a good idea.

Still silently stewing, Sakura took a moment to think about her issue again. Just because Madara got the clone jutsu on the first try didn't mean he was right about it being useless. Because if it were… then what did that make her and others who had to graduate with only basic three techniques under their belt? Idiots? Weak ninja with useless jutsu? That couldn't be right. Both Henge and Bunshin must be good for something or they wouldn't be taught at the Academy. The teachers knew what they were doing, they were experienced chunins and she trusted them. Madara was just acting like he knew better than everyone else, even adults.

_That jerk! Who does he take me for? I'll show him 'useless'! _Sakura vowed to learn Bunshin and then use it somehow to thoroughly embarrass Madara and make him admit he was wrong. That would show him! "Shannaro!" she shouted, pumping her fist into the air.

As the first step in her plan, Sakura went back home and stood before the full body mirror. She memorized her own looks carefully, then tried the clone jutsu again, concentrating hard on the chakra shell and constructing the accurate image of herself. A double of her shimmered for a few seconds before disappearing again. Stifling the frustration, Sakura gritted her teeth and kept trying.

With enough practice, she mastered the visualization part. Next was the hardest—making the clone last longer than ten seconds.

After the long practice session, Sakura dropped onto her bed and fell asleep in her clothes.

In the morning, instead of meeting up with Madara, she headed straight for school. There, she used the time before classes to exchange seats with another student, though she had to bribe him with a week's worth of homework to get him to agree to sit next to Madara. However, seeing Madara's face when he realized what she'd done was priceless. Sakura hid her smirk behind her hand. Step two completed!

All day long she could feel Madara glaring holes into the back of her head, but she made nothing out of it. What she didn't take into account was that others weren't as immune to his murderous looks.

"I can't sit with this psycho anymore! I don't need you to do my homework, just give me back my seat!" the other boy begged her during the lunch break. Sakura sighed and took pity on him.

Madara had the gall to look smug when she slid in her old spot next to him.

"You didn't have to scare him so much," she told him.

"Hmph. Don't make me sit with fools then," he replied haughtily. Then, he took in a deep breath and looked her straight in the eye. "Sakura, sorry about yesterday."

She was taken aback. "Does that mean you admit you were wrong?" she asked after a short pause.

"About what?" he asked in confusion. "Bunshin _is_ useless. But I admit I didn't think about your situation. That was… short-sighted of me."

"Try thick-headed, arrogant and inconsiderate," she ticked off.

Madara glared. "Do you want me to apologize or not?"

"… Go on."

"So, I thought about what you've said and I could help you with ninjutsu. I know some techniques that aren't clan secrets," he offered in earnest.

Sakura was at a loss. This was her chance and yet… something was preventing her from taking it. She bit her lip.

"Thanks. That's… a lot, actually. But, I'll manage by myself," she declined.

Madara looked at her like he was trying to read her mind. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said softly, giving a sharp nod.

He took her in critically one last time before relenting. He breathed out.

"Alright, but the offer still stands. You can ask for help, whenever you want."

"Thanks," she repeated with a shy smile.

"So are we cool now?" Madara asked and she nodded.

"I guess we are."

But she didn't give up on her plan and didn't come to train with him after school. "Sorry, I'm still going to work on my Bunshin," she refused him politely and went off alone back to her little forest hideout. The more she thought about the whole issue, the more apparent it became to her that Madara was wrong, again. What she was mad about wasn't really her lack of opportunities to learn more techniques, like he must have concluded. It was about proving something to him and to herself—that even without secret clan techniques, she could still be an excellent ninja. She didn't need to know some flashy jutsu to win.

Sakura used her old hideout for her private training sessions in autumn. She found it easier to concentrate on practice away from the prying eyes. That way she could mess up without worry that someone would see and judge her.

At first, Madara left her alone to do what she wanted, but the longer she kept to herself, the more curious he became.

"Where are you disappearing off to all the time?" he asked.

"Traning," Sakura replied laconically.

"Yes, but where?"

"Oh, it's around," she said without explaining anything. She couldn't help smirking when Madara made that frustrated expression. Usually, he was the one who withheld information and she was the one badgering him for it, with a various degree of success. How the tables have turned! She didn't expect being on the other side of this old argument would give her so much enjoyment.

However, she slightly underestimated Madara's patience. It took him over a month before he finally got fed up with her evasiveness. Things came to a head when once again she blew him off. Instead of just shrugging it off like before, Madara stood in her way and crossed his arms.

"Are you _still_ working on the Bunshin jutsu?" he asked incredulously.

"It's a complex jutsu," she replied, non-committal.

"By now you should have it in your little finger. What is going on?" Madara pressed, but she clammed up.

"Nothing is going on."

He gave her a non-plussed look. "Sakura, just tell me what you're really hiding. This has gone on long enough," he demanded.

"I'm not hiding. You can come look for me," she said shrewdly. "Provided that you can find me."

A fire lit up in Madara's eyes, just the way she knew it would. "So you want to play hide and seek? Very well, you're on," he took up her challenge. "Not that it would take long. With my chakra sensing it will be over quickly," he stated arrogantly.

Sakura only smirked. "We'll see."

After school, Sakura left through the window, surprising Madara who threw himself after her. He didn't realize that she attached herself to the wall just under the window with chakra and led him on a merry chase after a clone she created. She only needed it to look like it vanished among the trees. When Madara ran after the illusion of her, Sakura went in the opposite direction, heading for the best vantage point.

She watched from a high branch as Madara returned to the Academy building, looking pissed off. Admittedly, he caught on to her deception sooner than expected. He was really amazing.

Sakura placed another clone in his sight, just loitering on the roof of the Academy and even waving to him mockingly. Predictably, Madara rushed over there and she snickered.

The next phase of her plan went off without a hitch—she had him run around the Academy like a headless chicken. It was hilarious to watch, even from the distance. Madara was prepared for the clone this time, but it took him a while to check the whole building and grounds for her presence. Sakura wisely kept herself out of his sensing range and sent another clone, remembering to keep it in her line of sight, to create more diversion.

From the looks of it, Madara's level of annoyance was approaching maximum. He abruptly stopped running after her clone and tugged on his hair in frustration, then after a moment scaled the Academy walls up to the roof. There, he sat cross-legged, holding a hand seal for concentration. He was getting serious if he decided to sit down and passively search for her chakra! In their training he'd moved past that and focused on sensing while on the move which was much more taxing.

_Good idea, but it won't work, _Sakura thought smugly, knowing full well she was out of his range. And just like she thought, he just sat there ineffectively trying to sense her from a distance too great, like a radio that's too far away to catch the signal.

After two minutes of nothing, Sakura had an idea. Once again, she concentrated her chakra and projected her clone right in front of Madara.

"You will never find me, Ma-da-ra-kun," she sang out to him in the most cheerful, annoying tone possible, adding the suffix to his name just to get on his nerves even more. "Na na na na na, ha ha ha!"

"Goddamnit, Sakura!" he snarled, jumping up into a crouch and looking around. "Another clone?! Where the hell are you?!"

She blew him a raspberry.

"You little-! Arrghh!" Madara lunged at her with his hands outstretched to grab and shake her like a stuffed animal, forgetting that she was a clone and therefore immaterial. He lost balance and fell flat, smacking his face on the roof.

The real Sakura couldn't hold it in any more. She threw her head back and let out a mighty guffaw to the sky. Her whole body was shaking so hard with the glorious belly laugh that she almost fell off the branch. It rang out loud and clear through the grounds, making a flock of pigeons take off into flight. Sakura laughed and laughed, tears running down her cheeks and her breath turning spasmodic.

Madara's head swiveled in her direction and his burning gaze locked onto her across the distance between the Academy roof and the tree. Sakura's laughter rapidly cut off and she paled. His glare was scorching even from afar. She watched terrified as he got up from his knees.

_Got you,_ she saw him mouth. Her eyes widened in realization and she squeaked.

Madara broke into a sprint and jumped off the roof onto the nearest tree, his gaze trained onto her. Sakura cursed under her breath and scrambled down the tree trunk before hopping onto another tree. She had to get away before he caught up to her and exacted his terrible, terrible revenge.

Sakura tore off through the forest like the devil himself was on her heels, heart pounding in her throat. She'd never ran that fast in her entire life! Her mind was feverishly calculating her chances to get away. All she had to do was to put enough distance from her last known location and stay out of his sensing range. Then she would quietly disappear into the forest and he'd never find her. She could do it, she had a good head start!

"Saa-kuu-raa!" she heard his angry shout, so close behind her, and almost got a heart attack!

She gasped and whipped her head back in fright, he wasn't in the visual range yet, but he was undoubtedly gaining on her! He was so fast!

_What's with that insane speed?!_ She cried out in her thoughts, pumping her feet harder as she jumped from a tree to a tree. She clearly underestimated his abilities! In her panic, she tried to formulate some other plan of action, but there was no time! He was right behind her!

_You are a ninja, act like it! Use a ninjutsu, you idiot! _A voice inside yelled at her. Right, she was a ninja! But what could she do? Sakura bit on her bottom lip. Bunshin was out, he was too close, and Kawarimi would be just a stop gap measure, it wouldn't save her. That left only…

She swiftly dropped onto the forest ground and transformed herself into the first person she could think about, then concentrated on bringing her breathing back under control, before striding back towards the village.

She barely took three steps when Madara jumped off the branch with a lethal grace of a jungle panther. Her foot hesitated in the air for a split second before touching dirt, but she didn't turn around and continued on her way.

Madara looked around the foliage with crazy eyes. "You! Orange idiot!" he barked at her.

Sakura's back stiffened. "Me?" she asked with a tremble in her voice, then cursed herself. _That's not what Naruto would say!_

"Yes, you!"

She put on her game face and turned around with a deep scowl, crossing her arms. "What do you want from me! … Bastard!" she remembered to add at the last moment.

"Have you seen Sakura? She must have passed by here!" Madara demanded harshly.

"Nope! I haven't seen Sakura," Sakura replied with the most pissed off expression she could muster, shifting on her feet impatiently.

"You sure?"

"Yep!" she said with a bop of her head.

Madara narrowed his eyes at her. "You're not helping her, are you?" he asked point blank and Sakura's heart stopped. She summoned all of Naruto's reckless bluster.

"You betcha I would totally help her run away from you! Bastard! But I didn't see her. You probably went in the wrong direction. I-diot," she drew out the syllables in the most insulting, Naruto-ish way she could.

Madara's murderous glare that pinned her to the spot made her immediately regret her choice of words, authentic or not. Sakura gulped, eyes wide with fear. He seriously looked like he was considering hanging her—or rather Naruto—up by his entrails! Then he looked away, losing interest. "Tch."

Apparently, he deemed Naruto wasn't worth the trouble. Sakura breathed out shakily and adapted the scowl again. "Scary bastard…" she grumbled under her breath to keep in character and stuck her hands in the pockets of Naruto's grey pants as she walked away. She resisted the urge to run, because that would've been too suspicious. When she was well out of his sight, she bolted.

A small laugh bubbled out of her throat. She was free! She fooled the clan genius Madara with basic Academy techniques that he called useless and she got away with it! Sakura felt like she could fly from the sheer elation of that moment! She was so high on her success that she could touch the sky!

A warm gust tickled her ear.

"_I- found- you_," Madara said and she yelped in a sudden fright, jumping away like a scared rabbit. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she backed away as Madara advanced on her with a dangerous glint in his dark eyes.

"Did you really think I wouldn't recognize your chakra, Sa-ku-ra?" he asked in a soft voice, like a knife wrapped in silk, waves of pure malice radiating off him.

"W-What are you talking about, I'm not Sakura..." she replied, stubbornly clinging to her borrowed identity.

"Drop the transformation. Or I'll make you," Madara said with a clear threat.

Sakura's back hit a tree. She was well and truly cornered. Swallowing hard, she decided to make her last stand. She jutted out her chin and looked defiantly at Madara.

"Let's see you try," she said and when he tried to grab her, he only got a puff of smoke in his face as a log replaced the girl.

This was the fastest substitution she'd ever pulled off.

She couldn't do two techniques at once, so she had to let go of the Henge. Back in her own form, Sakura booked it, but Madara was on her in a flash. He tackled her, pinning her to the ground. She squirmed and wriggled to get free but she couldn't break out of his strong hold. Their eyes met, hers apprehensive, his glittering with the desire for vengeance.

"I win," he finally said.

"Do you?" she asked. "As I recall, you said it would be over quickly. I had you running around in circles for a long time," she brought up with a smirk. He was already pissed off, how worse could it get?

Madara growled, the nerve on his forehead twitching in annoyance, then his face smoothed out. He looked at her with an eerie smile and she gulped and shifted uneasily, already regretting running her mouth. Madara leaned down to her. "Time for payback," he said with a crazy look in his eyes.

Sakura was paralyzed by trepidation of what he was going to do to her. Then Madara changed his grip so that he kept her arms down one-handed, lowered his free hand… and paused, considering her again with a devilish grin.

"Tell me, Sakura," he asked, "are you ticklish?"

Her eyes widened in shock and naked fear at the implied threat._ No! Anything but that!_

Madara smelled the blood and pounced.

Sakura jerked her body violently, but he kept her down as he lavished her exposed, vulnerable armpits with a flurry of tickles. She was laughing and shaking uncontrollably, tears leaking from her eyes as she writhed and begged for mercy from the tickle torture, but Madara gave her no respite.

"Please! Stop! I'm going! To pee! Myself!" she gasped out in between fits of uncontrollable laughter.

"But I thought you liked to laugh because of me?" Madara asked innocently.

"No! I don't!" Sakura said frantically. "Please! No more! Please!"

The damp, miserable look she gave him must have worked because he finally relented and released her. Sakura rolled to the side and curled up protectively, getting the last giggles out of her system. She wheezed for breath, quivering and light-headed after all that laughing. When she calmed down a little, she turned to him with a pout.

"You're horrible!" she accused.

Madara was grinning like a cat that got a canary. "You started it, I just took my revenge."

"I was going to die! Die from laughter!"

"A hilarious way to die, no doubt," he replied wryly.

Sakura gritted her teeth and glared, but she couldn't hold on to her anger when he looked so happy and carefree, with a genuine smile on his face. Her expression softened. Slowly, she managed to sit up.

"But I got you," she said quietly.

"Huh?"

"I got you. With Academy techniques," she repeated, looking him in the eye. "You see? They aren't useless."

Madara looked surprised for a moment, then he let out a snort. "So _that's_ what this was all about!" he exclaimed. "You planned and trained all this time just to get back at me for that?"

Sakura nodded proudly.

Madara shook his head. "You're crazy," he said but contrary to his words, his tone was full of admiration.

"But I got you," she pointed out stubbornly.

Madara smiled with amusement. "You sure did," he agreed and gave her a fond look. "You got me good, Sakura."

She returned the smile, tired, but also feeling peaceful and self-satisfied. All of her hard work had paid off. She proved Madara wrong with her own strength.

He stood up and extended a hand to her. She took it and he helped her up.

Next day after school, Sakura fell in step with Madara as naturally as breathing and they went to the practice together.

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AN: Thanks for reading! All the reviews this story has gotten were very heartwarming and encouraging. Thank you and I hope you like this chapter as well! Please let me know your thoughts on the chapter and see you next week!


	7. Chapter 7

**And They Were Seatmates**

**-7-**

The months passed quickly and before Sakura realized it, it was already December, she'd aced her exams and the winter break began—starting on the twenty-fourth as her calendar with cute animals informed her. She'd had the date circled with the red highlighter which she only used for the most important days that she absolutely could not forget.

Sakura nodded to herself resolutely, put on her winter coat and boots, slipped a nicely wrapped package in her pocket and left her house. She hadn't made any plans with Madara for extra training during the holidays, but that didn't mean she couldn't go see him on his birthday. He'd seemed more withdrawn and distracted these last few days, so maybe this will cheer him up. She had to try.

First, she decided to check the training grounds in case he kept to his routine, but all she found was a raccoon skulking around in the piles of fallen leaves. Sakura turned back with a sigh and headed for the Uchiha district.

She stopped by the entrance, gripped by apprehension. The tall gate loomed over her imposingly, the carved guardians on the top looking down in judgment on those who dared to approach. Someone came out of the district, pushing an empty cart, and the intimidating effect dissipated. Sakura sucked in a deep breath and carried on, fueled by her determination.

The Uchiha district didn't resemble any other neighbourhoods in Konoha known to her, as it had a certain austere uniformity that others lacked. The architects had a very clear vision—white stone pavement, the walls evenly decorated with the Uchiha symbol, properties placed in a grid—which gave the idea of the clan's unity and discipline. Everything was clean and put where it belonged, stones, trees, houses, even people. Everything except Sakura. She flushed nervously and ducked her face. Her long pink hair made her stick out like a sore thumb and bring attention to the obvious outsider on the clan grounds. She was already drawing stares, so she hurried along.

Despite the orderliness of the district, it occurred to her she had no idea where Madara actually lived. She'd expected it would be easy to find but all of the residences looked similar to each other from the outside. She cast a desperate look around for a familiar face she could ask for directions, like Sasuke-kun, or better yet, for Madara himself to finally show up, but nothing of the sort happened.

With her shoulders set, Sakura approached the most friendly looking and probably harmless person on the street—an older woman sweeping in front of her house.

"Hello," Sakura greeted her. "Sorry to bother you ma'am, but I came to visit my classmate and I can't find his house. Could you help me?" she asked politely.

"Oh, hello, dear! Certainly!" the woman replied. "You're so pretty, you must be Sasuke-chan's friend?" She leaned in closer. "Sometimes strange girls try to sneak in and follow him, but I can tell you're nothing like them," she whispered and winked conspiratorially.

Sakura chuckled weakly to hide her embarrassment. "Of course not… Actually, I'm not here for Sasuke-kun. I was hoping you could tell me where Madara lives."

The woman's eyebrows shot up. "You're Madara's friend?" she asked with an appraising glint in her eye that was so different from her warm, jovial attitude seconds before.

Sakura nodded warily. "I am. Is there a problem?"

The woman shook herself out and lost the scrutinous look. "No, no. It's a good thing. That boy needs some friends," she said. "That irresponsible father of his made it hard enough for him. What was he even _thinking_?" she muttered under her breath, shaking her head.

"Um, what do you mean?" Sakura asked, burning with curiosity. You might learn truly a lot from simple gossip.

"His name! Who names that a child, especially in our clan? That's tempting fate. And to do something like that to such a nice boy?" The woman clucked her disapproval.

Sakura frowned, even more confused by that explanation. "What's wrong with Madara's name?" she inquired. The woman startled.

"Oh! Right, you're too young, so you wouldn't hear about that…" she looked away briefly, gathering her thoughts, then shook her head. "Don't worry about it, dear, it's just the old clan history," she only said, then changed the topic and finally gave the girl directions to Madara's house.

"Thank you so much," Sakura said and bowed. She would've loved to stay and chat more, but she got the hunch that she shouldn't push the woman. Clans were sensitive about their secrets.

"Ah, it's no trouble! Just be careful, today isn't a good day for him."

"I know. That's why I came," Sakura reassured her. "Goodbye!" She waved cheerfully and left.

"Bye, dear! Come by again, I'll treat you to some senbei! And bring Madara too!"

This time Sakura found the right house without any trouble, knocked at the door, then waited.

And waited.

She knocked again. "Madara! It's me, Sakura! Are you home?" she called out. "Ma-daaa-raaa!"

The door opened abruptly. "Shut up," Madara hissed venomously. His eyes were blurred with sleep, he was still wearing pajamas and had a ridiculous bedhead. Sakura didn't contain her snicker.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" It was hard to imagine him sleeping in. On the other hand, these _were_ the holidays.

"What do you think?" he asked sarcastically. "What are you standing there for, get in, it's cold," he ordered impatiently and she hastily entered.

Sakura left her boots in the genkan and took off her coat before remembering her gift. She surreptitiously pulled it out and followed Madara to the sitting room. It had modern furniture, a sofa and a tv set, but other than that it was pretty barren.

"Wait here," Madara said and went off to presumably get himself ready for the day.

Sakura had no intention of listening to him. This was her precious chance to visit his house and learn more about him (and possibly Sasuke-kun, too). She wanted to see his room!

But first, she examined the sitting room. There were no pictures, but she found a stack of newspapers, the newest just from yesterday while the last one on the bottom of the pile dated two months ago. She didn't understand why anyone besides the library would collect newspapers like that. It definitely wasn't Madara's style, but for the lack of more clues she moved on.

The next target of her inspection was the modest shelf of books and scrolls. She skimmed over the titles, but quickly saw that none of them had anything to do with chakra or ninjutsu. Instead the topics leaned towards manuals and guides, with the sole exception of _The Great Encyclopedia of Tarot_ and _In The Stars: The Noble Art of Astrology_. Finding such titles in a shinobi household made her raise an eyebrow. Was fortunetelling a hobby of someone in the family?

Sakura shelved those questions for another time and left the room to snoop some more. The kitchen looked normal, though there were dirty dishes from the last night left in the sink. The dining room was behind a sliding door and had a traditional décor unlike the rest of the house. Sakura had a feeling it didn't see much use.

She was reaching for the door knob of the next room when Madara emerged from his room down the hallway and in an instant he was beside her, yanking her hand away.

"I told you to wait!" he thundered.

Sakura winced and shook the arm caught in his vice-like grip. "Let go, it hurts!" she cried out. Madara released her right away. She rubbed her hurting wrist. "There was nothing in there, I was bored," she made her excuse, pouting at him.

Madara crossed his arms. "You mean you went snooping. You're supposed to be smart, Sakura. This is my father's room," he said, indicating the room she attempted to enter. "He's a jounin. What do you think would have happened if you went in?"

Sakura's eyes went wide. "It's booby-trapped?" she asked, feeling faint.

Madara nodded solemnly. "You would've been turned into a pincushion."

She stared. "You're joking."

"I am not."

"But this is a house, your family lives here! Why would anyone set traps _inside_?!" she stressed out.

"Extreme paranoia." Madara shrugged. "And after grandma died, it's just me and Father." He scratched his head. "… Well, whenever he's not out on a mission," he grudgingly added. "The house is empty for most of the day, so using traps makes sense for defense."

Sakura quickly put two and two together.

"Your father isn't home today?" she inquired delicately. He'd said they didn't celebrate birthdays, but still… a father not being there to at least give his well wishes on his son's birthday?

Madara didn't look bothered though.

"Yeah, he took another mission yesterday. He'll be back in a few months, more or less."

_Months?! _

"But… what about holidays?"

"What about them?"

"You know… holidays are for families, to… to spend time together," she awkwardly explained.

"Ah, right. We tried doing that, when grandma was still alive." Madara quieted for a second, then shook himself off. "Trust me, it's better off this way. You don't know how he gets at this time of the year." He sighed moodily. "Going on a long mission is the best option."

Sakura stared at him helplessly. It bothered her so much just how unbothered Madara was about this whole situation, but she had no idea what to do or say to make it better.

He gave her a keen look. "Enough about my father," he said. He must have realized he was making her uncomfortable. "Any reason why you showed up here uninvited?" he asked.

"Oh! Yes, right. I got something for you." Sakura presented the small package to him. "Happy birthday, Madara!"

"What is it?" he asked, bemused, accepting her gift.

"Open it and see!" she urged him excitedly.

Madara carefully removed the colourful wrapping without tearing it, then opened the box, revealing a pair of warm, black gloves inside.

"I noticed you didn't have any winter gloves, so I picked these for you!" Sakura explained in a nervous rush and gave him an uncertain look, biting her lower lip. "Do you like them?" she asked hopefully when he still said nothing.

Madara dragged a finger over the smooth leather, then finally raised his eyes to her. "Yeah, I like them. Thanks." His voice was a little rough, but the smile he gave her was genuine. Sakura grinned back, inordinately pleased with herself.

"Oh, you should try them on! I wasn't sure about the size, all I had to go on was that your hands are slightly bigger than mine," she remembered.

Madara slowly tugged the gloves on. They fit him perfectly. "You have a good eye," he complimented her. Sakura reddened from pride and beamed at him.

"Great!" she exclaimed and clapped her hands once. "So, what are your plans for today? Anything you want to do in particular? Will you show me your room?"

Madara put up his hand as if defending himself from the torrent of her enthusiasm spilling forth his way. "I just woke up," he grumbled. "First things first, I need some breakfast, then we can think of what to do next."

"I'll make you something to eat!" Sakura jumped to offer, still in the spirit of birthday celebration and shot off to the kitchen without waiting for him to agree.

While Madara perched on the stool, Sakura looked into the fridge and realized she had no idea what to cook for him. Her mother usually made her favourites for her birthday, but Sakura wasn't sure about Madara's. She turned to him with a faint chuckle to mask her consternation.

"Um, so what would you like to eat?" she asked.

"Breakfast," he deadpanned.

Sakura huffed—he was being obstinate on purpose! She put her hands on her hips.

"I know that, but what exactly would you like for breakfast?" she asked again, trying for patience. "I'll make anything… as long as you have ingredients," she quickly added her one stipulation.

An eager glint appeared in his eyes. "Anything?" he asked in a challenging tone.

"That's what I said," she replied with narrowed gaze.

"Then, can you make… inarizushi?"

Sakura thought about the dish and wracked her memory for the recipe. It was simple enough, even if she was a little iffy on some details. What was important was that it was based on rice. She could absolutely make rice (_any dummy could make rice_, a little annoying voice whispered in the back of her mind. She promptly ignored it.)

"Sure, I can make it," she said in full confidence, giving a resolute nod.

Ten minutes later, she wasn't so sure about it anymore. She managed the rice, which was the easiest part, but as she took out a pan to prepare the aburaage, she was stumped. What was it that she needed to add and how much? She cast a surreptitious look around, hoping to find a cookbook to consult with. There had to be one somewhere!

"You need help finding something?" Madara asked. Damn his annoying perceptiveness!

"No! Everything's fine, I was just thinking! Maybe you should go set the table? I can't concentrate when you're staring," she made up an excuse to get him out of there so she could hunt for a cookbook in peace and hopefully save her own cooking credibility in the process.

"Seriously?" Madara looked at her doubtfully. She made shooing motions and sounds with insistence.

"Alright, alright," he said, giving in, and finally left.

The moment he was gone, Sakura ran to cabinets and threw them open. "Where is it, where is it," she whispered to herself desperately as she went through all the shelves and drawers in her mad search for a cookbook. There! She found it tucked in a back corner behind a pair of measuring cups.

Sakura pulled it out. It wasn't as much of a book as just an old notebook with a hand-written title _Recipes_ on the cover. She gingerly cracked open the first page, hoping for a table of contents, but there was only the first recipe (udon). She scoured the yellowed pages for inarizushi and almost let out a triumphant cry when she found the recipe near the middle. Immediately, she grabbed the pan again.

Following the instructions should have made cooking easier. The only thing Sakura didn't take into account was that the recipe could be too vague about certain things, which paired with her own inexperience spelled a certain disaster for the entire endeavour.

She was in the middle of the crisis, when Madara peeked in. "Are you done, I'm starving…" he cut off when he saw the dark, curling smoke rising out of the pan and Sakura desperately blowing at the spreading flames. He blinked. "What are you doing?"

He turned the stove off and put the cover on the pan, killing the fire, then opened the window. Then he fixed an unamused look on her, arms crossed.

"Do you even know how to cook?" he asked.

"I do! My mother teaches me," Sakura said defensively, but the truth was that with all the studying and training she did, she hadn't had time for a cooking lesson in a very long time. And as she barely had any need to cook for herself, Sakura also lacked in practice of the cooking skills she should have already possessed.

"Uh-uh," Madara muttered in disbelief.

Under his knowing stare, she lost all the bluster. Sakura sighed resignedly. "Look, I'm sorry I burnt the aburaage, I only took my eyes off of it for a second. I'll make another batch and I'll return the money for the food I wasted."

"No need." Madara took the plate with sushi balls she'd had prepared to be put into aburaage pockets and deep fried, then popped one into his mouth. He chewed, a light appearing in his eyes, and he swallowed it fast. "This is pretty good," he said and ate another one of her unfinished products.

She watched wide-eyed as he hungrily scarfed down all the sushi balls in less than five minutes, then set the plate in the sink. Feeling contrite for her cooking blunder, she volunteered to wash the dishes while Madara made tea.

"So, what are you going to do today?" she finally asked and took a sip of her tea.

Madara's stare turned contemplative as he looked into his own mug. "I ought to visit my mother's grave like every year," he said. "Then I'm free. Is there something you wanted to do?"

"Well, I thought we could go to that one place, they sell really good anko," Sakura suggested. "And… there was that one lady that invited us both for senbei?" she hesitantly added.

"Senbei? You talked to Aunt Uruchi?" Madara guessed.

"I suppose? I didn't catch her name." Sakura frowned, remembering that peculiar exchange, then cast him a pensive look, weighing if it was worth bringing up. "She said something strange about your name…" she mentioned uncertainly.

"My name?"

"Yeah, she talked as if there was something wrong with it…"

"Oh. That." Madara exhaled. "She must have meant that I share a name with a traitor."

Sakura did a doubletake. "Traitor?"

"He was defeated by the First Hokage. It's all ancient history anyway, but you know how the old folks are, very superstitious. They see ill signs and omens everywhere. I wouldn't worry about it."

Sakura took in his explanation and nodded in full agreement. "Yeah, a name is just a name. There are lots of people that have the same name and it doesn't mean anything. Take me for example. Just how many other girls are named Sakura?"

"But none of them have pink hair like you," Madara calmly refuted with a fond look. "So you're the only one that actually deserves the name."

Sakura pinkened a smidge. Sometimes he said just the _weirdest_ things! "W-Well, by that logic you shouldn't be Madara at all. I don't see any spots on you!"

"That's not what my name means," he grumbled.

Sakura quickly ran through the other options of the kanji reading. "It's either that or a cod! So if you prefer to be a fish guy…" she trailed off with a smirk.

He glared at her. "That's not what I meant."

"Then what?" she asked, leaning forward in interest.

His gaze turned inwards and then he spoke. "Madara… is the one who will alter the fate of the world. Irrevocably."

The ultimate surety in his tone stunned her for a moment. His words were heavy with a profound meaning she couldn't quite comprehend, but that resonated and moved her to the very core. His presence became larger than life and she caught a glimpse of a man he was going to grow into.

Then she blinked and it passed. Madara was the same frowny eleven, no, twelve-year-old again.

"Alter the fate? What does that even mean?" she asked him.

He shrugged, sporting a pensive look. "I'm not sure. It's just something my father once told me. He… tends to exaggerate about a lot of things," Madara admitted with a wince.

Sakura pondered. "Sounds like he must believe in fate too, like that oba-san. He just chooses to believe that your name is a good sign for the future," she reasoned.

Madara's mouth opened, but no sound came out as he stared at her in utter surprise. "I… never thought about it that way," he said when he recovered. "I just thought he was making it up to make me feel better."

"Well, 'altering the fate' sure beats spots and a cod as a name meaning," Sakura joked. "In your place, I'd keep it."

Madara snorted. "Yeah, no contest there," he agreed.

In a much lighter atmosphere they finished the tea and got dressed for the trip to the cemetery. Sakura felt pleased with herself when Madara slipped on her gift. He locked up the house and they headed out.

As they passed a few Uchiha on the streets, Sakura noted their behavior. At most, they exchanged a polite nod with Madara, some simply ignored him. One very old woman made an evil-repelling gesture when he walked by. There really was a distance between Madara and the rest of his clan. She was starting to understand oba-san's comment about him needing friends.

"Where are you going? Cemetery's the other way," Sakura pointed out when Madara took a turn for the village center. She didn't like the direction they were heading towards.

"I need to get flowers first," he replied, confirming her fears. He was going to the flower shop. And with the school on break… Ino might be helping out in there.

"I'll wait outside," Sakura said quickly when they reached the place. Madara gave her a strange look, but went inside without asking. She stood around in the front, pretending that she belonged there and failing miserably. People were _looking_. She felt awkward and out of place and she was just praying for Madara to hurry up and come back so they could finally _leave_.

What was taking him so long? Sakura turned and peeked inside through the storefront. Madara was at the counter, Ino was wrapping the flowers for him, then she handed them to him, her blue eyes rising up and looking out the window… Sakura whirled around with a pounding heart. She could swear that pig saw her. No, she couldn't have. She was looking at Madara, not directly behind him. She had no idea that Sakura was standing there right in front of the shop. Unless… could Ino be a chakra sensor too? No, that's too advanced for her, she's not nearly as genius as Madara.

Sakura breathed out slowly, calming herself down.

Madara came out of the shop, carrying a bunch of white lilies.

"Yamanaka asks why you didn't come in and say hello," he passed on drily.

_Shit, she saw me! _Sakura thought. "You can tell her I didn't want to see her ugly face today," she replied with a haughty sniff.

"Don't drag me into this. You can tell her yourself." When she made no move to enter the shop, he rolled his shoulders. "Let's go then," he said and set out, Sakura falling into step beside him.

Ino was going to give her hell for this, but she chose not to worry about it for now.

The Konoha cemetery was not as abandoned on that day as Sakura had expected. There were plenty of villagers milling about in the alleys, visiting their dead family and friends. She supposed holidays were for some the time to remember their loved ones who had already left.

Madara picked his way confidently, without stopping to check if he was going in the right direction. It was either thanks to his great memory or… he'd been there often enough. Sakura's eyes misted over at that depressing thought.

"It's here," he muttered, pointing to a solitary white marble headstone with a name and a Konoha symbol engraved on it.

Sakura read it over and frowned in consternation. "Not Uchiha?" she asked.

"My parents weren't married," Madara explained off-handedly.

She turned to him, eyes wide with shock. She heard about such things, children born out of wedlock, but it always happened somewhere far away, not in the peaceful Konoha… But Madara's father was an Uchiha! He'd had to have honour!

"Um, why, why wouldn't they..." she tried to ask as tactfully as possible, but she just sounded really flustered.

Madara shrugged. "There was a war and then they wanted to wait with the wedding for after I was born, but then mom… I guess they just didn't get a chance."

_Oh…_ "Sorry," she said. "For bringing this up… and for assuming… stuff," she added, abashed.

"It's fine," Madara said with a grunt.

"I'll give you some privacy," Sakura offered quietly.

"Thanks."

She went back a respectful distance and watched as Madara approached the grave, put the lilies in a stone vase with a bunch of red camellias and a single yellow jonquil that looked out of place in the middle of them, and left an offering—a manju bun and a cup of sake. Then he lit an incense stick and clapped his hands together in a silent prayer.

While Sakura waited, it didn't escape her notice that the grave was placed in the general quarters, not the Uchiha clan's section. She wanted to ask about that too, but suspected that it was another sensitive topic she probably should leave alone. Her prying caused Madara enough pain that day already.

Instead, Sakura wondered what his mother had been like. She couldn't imagine not having her mother in her life. Just the thought of coming home and being there completely alone was downright scary. And Madara had to live with that every day, especially since his father didn't seem to be around much. How hard was it on him?

She was ashamed to admit that not so long ago she had thought kids without parents, like Naruto, were spoiled. They had no one controlling them or nagging them and she was envious of that freedom without giving a second thought to their pain. Only through meeting Madara and seeing his situation she realized how wrong she had been assuming such things. _Maybe I should be a little nicer to Naruto…_ she mused.

Madara bowed to the grave and returned to her. "All done. Let's go," he said. His steps seemed lighter somehow, unburdened and almost buoyant as he went ahead.

"Had a good talk?" Sakura asked, encouraged by his sudden good mood.

Madara tilted his head in consideration. "Something like that," he allowed. "You said something about getting anko?" he mentioned, changing the topic.

Sakura grinned and tugged him along. She was craving for some sweet, sweet dango.

.

.

AN: Thanks for reading! This chapter got a little more serious. Please tell me your impressions, what worked, what didn't. See you next time!


	8. Chapter 8

**And They Were Seatmates**

**-8-**

"What is going on with you, Forehead?" Ino demanded after she had ambushed and dragged Sakura off to a secluded corner of the Academy during the lunch break.

Sakura glared, not appreciating the manhandling. She'd taken pains to avoid bumping into Ino during the winter break, but back in school her luck finally ran out.

"Nothing's going on. Why do you ask?" she replied flippantly.

Ino gave her a hard look. "Oh, come on. If you're giving up on being my rival, at least have the common decency to tell me!" she spat out.

"What?" Sakura stared in surprise at her blonde nemesis. "Where did you get that idea?"

"Don't act coy with me!" Ino pointed a finger at her. "I saw you with that Madara boy during the holidays! You were on a date!" she accused.

"What!?" Sakura sputtered, flabbergasted at such a ridiculous notion. "Pig, are you nuts? What are you talking about?"

Ino narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "If it wasn't a date, then why were you hiding from me like a coward when he was buying flowers in my shop?" she questioned.

Sakura glared back unhappily, hands balled into fists at her sides. "Maybe because I knew you would say something weird like that to us. And for your information, I went with Madara to his mother's grave that day. Because I'm his _friend_," she stressed. The pig needed it spelled out to her.

Ino wasn't entirely convinced. "Oh, so why did you give him a gift too? And went with him to a restaurant?"

Sakura looked at her in disbelief. Honestly, how had that pig found out all of that? Was she spying on them? "It's none of your business, but I got him a gift because it was his _birthday_," she ground out in annoyance. "And we didn't go to a restaurant, it was just a dango shop. So no, I did not give up on being your rival and I'm absolutely going to wipe the floor with you and make Sasuke-kun fall in love with me," she declared hotly. "Now, are you finished with this stupid interrogation? Can I go?"

Ino huffed but relented. "Fine. I see you're serious about this. But I'll be watching you, Forehead! There's no way I'll let you surpass me and Sasuke-kun will definitely be mine!"

Their fiery gazes locked as the fighting spirit ignited in both girls. Matching wolfish grins sprouted on both of their faces.

"You know, you've been hanging out with Shikamaru and Chouji for years and I never got on your case like this," Sakura remarked idly.

Ino snorted. "That's because you've _seen_ Shikamaru and Chouji. Cute, they are not. Nowhere near Sasuke-level."

"And Madara is?"

"Sure."

Taken aback, Sakura looked at her suspiciously, but Ino seemed not to be pulling her leg. Sakura rolled her eyes. "You only think so because you don't know him. He's not cute, he's… he's…" she stumbled, brow crinkling as she found herself unable to find the right word to describe what Madara even was. "He's just not!" she exclaimed out of frustration.

"If you say so," Ino replied in a sing-song voice that only grated on Sakura's nerves. "I've got to go. See you later!" she said and skipped away. Sakura growled low in her throat and made a beeline back to the classroom. Her stomach was rumbling with hunger and she'd lost too much of the break on Ino's nonsense.

She sat down abruptly, scraping the chair on the floor with a jarring sound, grabbed her bento, snapped the chopsticks with a sharp crack and viciously tore into her food. Madara, who was almost finished with eating, raised an eyebrow at that silent display of her agitation, but said nothing. For a while, Sakura stewed in thought as she polished off her lunch.

"Ino-pig is so stupid," she suddenly said. "Girls and boys can just hang out as friends."

Madara grunted in affirmative.

Sakura stabbed with her chopsticks and took another bite, then looked closely at his face, squinting hard. "Madara… no offense, but you're not cute."

This time his eyebrows shot up so high they reached his hairline. "Huh?!"

She took another close look. "Yep. Not even a little bit. I'm sorry to say you're as cute as a very angry porcupine."

"Sakura, _what the hell_."

She shook her head, relieved by her observations. Why did she let Ino bother her so much? This was silly. "Never mind. Forget what I said."

Madara gave her a flat look. "Right. Let me just take out my memory, wipe it clean and put it back in," he said sarcastically. "Not that I want to be 'cute'," he shuddered, "because I don't, but you're not exactly a picture of Miss Konoha either. Want to tell me what this is all about?"

"No. And what was that supposed to mean?" The vein on her temple twitched in annoyance at his comment.

Madara pointedly looked over her very sensible winter outfit—dark, long-sleeved shirt and olive-green pants which she pulled out from the bottom of her wardrobe. "Just that you won't be winning any fashion contest in the old rags you're wearing," he drawled.

In retaliation, she tried to stab him with her chopsticks, but he parried it with his own pair, letting out a gleeful laugh. Sakura kept up her furious barrage which Madara skillfully defended from, but their fight was cut short when the teacher returned to resume classes.

The whole topic of the so-called date was buried and promptly forgotten.

But Sakura couldn't get Madara's remark about her outfit out of her mind. It stayed there, like a little bit of gravel that got stuck inside her shoe, easily ignored when she didn't move, but making it uncomfortable to walk. When she trudged back home after practice, Sakura caught a sight of herself in the store window—ruffled pink hair clumped with sweat, warm grey coat and loose pants completely unflattering on her figure.

_…__not a picture of Miss Konoha… old rags…_

With horror, Sakura realized that Madara was completely right. She looked terrible. Just because it was winter, it didn't mean she shouldn't put effort into her appearance. Look at Ino! Sakura remembered the cute outfit her rival wore that day, chic leggings and a purple tunic. Even her coat was fashionable and fitted, not a shapeless lump like Sakura's. She was shocked that Ino didn't even mention a thing about her clothing. Normally, dressing so shabbily should have earned Sakura a mocking remark at the very least.

_She was too busy making stupid insinuations to insult my clothes,_ Sakura thought, wrinkling her nose at her own reflection. Or maybe Ino realized that this was to her advantage in their competition. Sasuke-kun wouldn't want to look at a badly dressed, sweaty girl like Sakura was right now.

_This is what I get for hanging out with a guy for so long, _Sakura lamented to herself. _I'm losing my femininity!_

She would have wallowed in her self-pity for longer, but the shopkeeper was giving her a weird look as she kept loitering in front of his shop. Sakura flushed, realizing it was a bookstore with some orange adult books on the showcase, which seemingly she'd been intently staring at for the past five minutes, when in reality she'd been only checking herself out in the glass. She scampered away from the store and ran back home without stopping.

Sakura ate, showered and put on her pajamas. Then she clapped her cheeks to get herself motivated. She might have been failing at keeping up her appearance, but now that she realized the problem, she could do something about it! She wouldn't let Ino have the satisfaction of winning so easily! And she would show Madara that Miss Konoha had nothing on her! With fire ignited in her eyes, Sakura marched to her closet and threw it open, then started rooting through it determinedly. She was going to pick out the cutest outfit possible!

Next day, Sakura overslept. When she woke up and saw the time, she jumped out of the bed, dressed in record time, grabbed her schoolbag and ran straight for the Academy. She arrived in the classroom with half a minute to spare. Despite her abrupt entrance, barely anyone looked at her. For some reason people were all looking to the back of the room, some craning their necks, whispers and snickers flittering around. Sakura followed their gaze.

There was someone else in Madara's seat. She couldn't believe it! She'd never seen this boy before. He looked like another Uchiha, but that gave him no right to take Madara's place, family or not! He had some guts! Sakura tore towards him, preparing to give him a piece of her mind.

The boy was looking back at her as she approached, the scowl on his face fading into vague surprise as he scanned her from head to toe. Sakura self-consciously smoothed out her white blouse and straightened the pleated skirt.

"What's with the fancy clothes—"

"Who the hell do you think you are—"

They both began talking at the same time, then stopped in consternation. The boy's voice sounded familiar. He quirked his eyebrow at her in a way she'd seen a thousand times… Sakura gasped.

"Madara?!" she asked, stunned.

"Who else? Don't you recognize me?" he asked.

"But… your hair…" Sakura stared at his head. Gone were the natural spikes, the usually wild, black hair was slicked back with a hair gel. The new hairstyle brought out the sharpening angles of his face into focus. Madara looked like a different person.

"What about it?" he asked, giving her an expectant look as he awaited her response.

"It's… shiny… and smooth…" she described, still flabbergasted by the sudden change. She saw models and actors having that kind of hairstyle, but on Madara… "You look weird."

When she saw his darkening expression, she backpedaled. "No! I mean, it's not bad! It's just so new! I was surprised!" she babbled reassuringly. "You look so different, completely unlike you! But, it's really trendy! Not bad at all!"

To her despair, her words had the opposite effect to the intended. Madara didn't lighten up, instead a blankness came upon his face. The bell rang and Goro-sensei arrived to take the roll call. Heedless of that, Madara stood up and went past her, down the steps and to the exit.

"Where do you think you're going?" the teacher called. "The class has already started."

"Bathroom," Madara bit out and slammed the door shut behind him.

Sakura looked after him worriedly, wringing her hands. She said the wrong thing, but she didn't know what! What if Madara wasn't going to come back! It was all her fault, she should have said something nicer! Honesty was overrated! What if he never spoke to her again?

"Are you going somewhere too, Sakura?" Goro-sensei asked with annoyance, putting her on the spot. "Sit down."

Sakura shook her head and sank into her seat quietly, but she was watching the door anxiously. After around ten minutes it opened and Madara stalked inside. Everyone looked at him in surprise. His hair was wet, water dripping from the ends onto his indigo shirt and the floor. He looked like he'd just dunked his head into a river.

Goro-sensei sighed. "I'm not even going to ask. Go to your seat and don't interrupt me anymore," he only said to Madara.

Madara wordlessly passed through the class and sat down heavily next to Sakura who had to restrain herself from exploding with questions. When the teacher's back was turned, she took her chance.

"Why did you do that?" she whispered to Madara incredulously. Seriously, who washes their head in school?

Madara gave her a sideways glance. "I just felt like it," he replied in a bored tone.

Sakura frowned, but she couldn't continue drilling him because the teacher turned to face the classroom again. The whole matter of Madara's hair bothered her so much that she forgot all about showing him up for that 'Miss Konoha' comment.

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AN: To be continued in part two! The chapter was too long so I split it up. Please let me know how you like it and see you next week! :)


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